DAWN of the NINDROIDS
by KairiVenomus
Summary: This is the story of my human life, from beginning to end, and then a new beginning again when I am recreated into a mechanical masterpiece. There's gears, new friends, bitter obstacles—and even a little danger. My name is Zane. I am the first of the Nindroids, the first of the Clockwork Army to ever be created. And I swear on my life that I will be the last.
1. Prologue

**PLZ RD:**** Hello! It's me, Kairi- This is a story about Zane and his life as a nindroid BEFORE he met the Ninja, and his life BEFORE he was a nindroid in the first place- yea, you're probs lookin' at me weird. -.-' This is sort of a tie-in to my (Ninjago )NFAN series, but you ****DON'T HAVE TO HAVE READ IT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT'S HAPPENING OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT ZANE HAD A LIFE BEFORE HE BECAME A NINDROID****. Okay? That's it. **

**(Altho I encourage you to go read the first NFAN book, Shadow Dancer, because it's ****_freaking_**** awesome, and then you'll go read book 2, The Autumn of Twilight, and then book 3, The Kingdom of Death, because you'll be so in love with the series you'll be hooked. ;D)**

**SO ANYBODY CAN READ THIS! ^-^ With that being said, here's the prologue!**

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_Prologue  
_A DAY AFTER THE FIRST SPINJITZU MASTER'S BIRTH

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN any other choice for me. When you're someone like I am, you live in a rather brutal, uncharacteristic world, where everybody looks like replicas of everyone else, and all the other people around you have exactly the same problems, and basically every living cell in every single body has the same genetic makeup. Everyone tends to like to be just like everyone else because they are scared of being different. They never stray from the crowd, never shift the balance just a little to make the world more exciting. Where I come from, that would be considered extremely "weird," as some people would call it now. Back then, there was only one way that people lived, and that could even be considered, well, _not _living. No one took risks, no one did anything beyond the set path for them in life's course. It was extremely sad.

I liked to live on the edge, be different. But one day, I didn't know _how _different I would become when I took the wrong turn on the wrong path. Life is kind of evil that way, yet I do not despair, for I have lived my life to the fullest. Well, my first life, anyway.

My second life? _Even better._

Perhaps you're extremely confused with me, and that's okay. I will explain this all to you in good time, but it must be slowly released. I don't want to ruin the whole book for you, now do I?

I want to tell you about how I lived, and how I died. I want to tell you about how I have loved and lost and suffered through many extreme battles, and made it out alive. I want to tell you about my first life, as a human, with a heartbeat, and a family who I could safely call mine. And I want to tell you about my second life when I became someone else. I became someone who broke the normal rules of staying "within the crowd," someone who veered off the path because I was so completely different that it could've costed me my life if anyone found out what I had become.

Eventually, someone did.

This is the story of my life, from beginning to end, and then beginning again. There's sparks, there's gears, there's new friendships—and even a little danger. Of course, you, as my reader, are probably rolling your eyes at me to scoff, "I really doubt that you have much to say, random guy."

But I do. I have lived for a long, long time. You might say that I've seen it all, although that is an extremely different topic, and very irrelevant to what I was talking about.

My name is Zane. I am the first of the Nindroids, the first of the Clockwork Army.

And I swear on my life that I will be the last.


	2. Chapter 1

_DATE: 21 of June  
AGE:14  
STATUS: Human_

"_ZANE!" _

I whirled, dropping the large stack of firewood in my arms, which cluttered to my feet in loud, angry knocks. As if it weren't bad enough that I had such poor coordination skills, I backed into the sheep fence, practically knocking away what little work I had already gotten done. Father sent me out there to clean up and finish making the fencing, but instead I had done more damage than repair. I was never one to be handy with tools. It looked like I would have to return to Phase 1 of my fence assembly after I faced my blame for the day. With a sigh, I abandoned the pile of firewood to meet my screaming, burgundy-faced brother halfway through the yard.

Rikku was furious. I could see it on his face even as far away as I was. He has always been two years older than me, but he acts like he's at least five years older, with his manly attitude of No Fun Allowed. He acts like my father does, really, although they say Rikku looks just like my mother and I look like the milkman. (They say this as a joke. I really do not look like the milkman. I just don't look like either of my parents.) I have my mother's adventure, though, and that's why they call me a "Mother's Boy."

Rikku's chest was beaded with sweat. His long, wavy hair, the color of Lloyd's Candy Company's dark chocolate, was pulled from his face by a slick rubber band, but it was matted to his face and neck with his skin's excretions. "What are you doing?" he demanded. I could feel myself shy away from the icy blue eyes staring down at me. My brother and I have always shared the same eye color, but that is the only similarity between us two.

I decided that I was going to tell the truth. "I was standing," I answered him. "I was also breathing, blinking, and dying all at once."

Rikku rolled his eyes, wiping his brow. My brother spent countless hours working in the fields with my father, where I soon would be upgraded to working. For now, I was still the lonely boy chopping wood and talking to the chipmunks who watched me perform such actions.

Every time I saw either of them, they were both shirtless, tanning from the sun's heavy rays. I could never do that. I was too pale; my skin would begin to burn after so long. That was one reason why I wasn't allowed to help in the fields—quite the liability to Father. He was happier when I made use of myself chopping wood and making wimpy fences for a bunch of fat sheep.

"Don't be smart with me," snapped Rikku. "I mean it. Get your head out of the clouds and get to work. Father needs that fence done _soon, _and if it isn't, he'll whip you. Plus, Mother needs firewood to cook dinner tonight. You have a responsibility, Zane," my brother said sternly. I bowed my head. "Now, stop using the time to daydream and make yourself useful."

I returned to the fence and firewood once Rikku jogged back to my father amid the fields. The few sheep we owned grazed on newborn grass in the shadow of our small, wooden village home. Everyone else said it was too small, but I thought it was perfect for the four of us: Mother, Father, Rikku, and me. I liked the cozy way of having my family within arms' reach. As I used a rope to poorly tie together two thin logs that would soon make the shelves of the fence, I caught sight of my favorite little goat named Lucky Charmer. He was my first pet that I had since a few years ago, and it was Lucky that I talked to more so than my mother, father, _or _brother. Call me crazy, but Lucky listened to me better than my parents did. It was nice to have a friend.

I clucked my tongue. I was easily sidetracked back then, so naïve. It was nature that often captured my attention, making me riveted to its magic. I liked to sit and watch buds bloom into new flowers, wondering how the process worked; I liked to watch an ant crawl across the soil with a crumb on its back, watching it walk back to the secret operation beneath the anthill. I liked to find cocoons and wait until the butterfly came to life. The way the world worked fascinated me back then. I was constantly torn away from the real world so I could absorb myself in Mother Nature's remedies.

Lucky Charmer heard my noise and immediately trotted his way over. We didn't have a sheepdog, although I really wanted one when I was fourteen, so I played with the next best thing. Lucky Charmer himself was a truly different kind of sheep. You shouldn't let the _baa'_s and fluffy white wool mislead you. I had taught him to fetch sticks, play dead, and even do a little dance. I never quite understood why, but when I saw animals dance, it gave me some understanding that if they could dance, they were smarter than your average little "beast." I rubbed Lucky's face with my hands, a grin on my mouth. I'd housebroken him, too, but Father told me sheep didn't belong inside houses, they belonged inside of pens, and he'd have a nice place to sleep if I quit lollygagging all the time. I looked at my current excuse for a sheep's home sideways. Well…he had _half _a home so far, that counted, didn't it?

I picked up a nearby stick and waved it in his face. "Go get it, Lucky!" I said as I threw it. He scampered away with a happy bleat.

"Zane, what are you doin'?" Mama's voice called to me. I glanced up to see her standing in the doorway of our small cottage, arms crossed over her chest, apron dirty. Her long brown hair tumbled down her shoulders in waves darker than Rikku's. She sounded scolding, but she looked like she was gonna laugh. Mama was the one who tolerated me the most out of the other two people in my family. She knew what it was like to be adventurous like me, but she didn't understand why I wanted to figure out how things worked all the time. She often said to me, when asked a question like, "Mama, why do rabbits change color when there's snow on the ground?", that it was just because the way worked and I didn't need to investigate anything. I don't think anybody wanted to know as much as I did. That was simply explained as everyone hated being different.

And I was different.

"I'm playing with Lucky," I told her cheerily, but I saw her pretty face frowning.

"You know your daddy will whip you if he sees you playin'. I don't want to see y'all get hit again, baby," Mama came down the rickety porch steps towards me, lifting her blue patterned skirts to avoid dragging them on the ground.

But I smiled to show her it didn't hurt. "I never try to make him hit me, Mama," I said honestly, picking up another log and starting to tie it against the rod standing upwards. Lucky bleated from beyond. He was still looking for that stick.

"I know," Mama said empathetically, and I caught the sense that she knew what it was like to be hit. She sat down on the ground beside me to rub my dirty cheek with her soft thumb. My mother was young, pretty, with bright blue eyes and a heart shaped face. She was the most caring person I knew. Of course, I didn't know many other people besides my family, other than the _old _couple in town, Mr. and Mrs. Walker, who lived with their young son and his wife. I think their names were Ed and Edna. I wasn't sure; I had only ever spoken to them briefly upon seeing them. I liked Mr. and Mrs. Walker because they were nice people, and Mrs. Walker adored me. I would go over to their house to help them with yard work when Ed wasn't home, or when Father told me it was okay to go into town since I had nothing better to do. Rikku used to insist that he come with me, but after a while, he started getting bored of the war stories that Mr. Walker told me and finally let me travel on my own.

Mama patted my chest. "But you best get working, Zane," she advised. "It would be a shame if he hit you because of this damn fence again."

I started to nod, but my eyes caught sight of a bird fluttering in the sky. It was a dark shape, yet a broad one that was strong and neat, soaring just above our heads and in front of the sun. The bird was so majestic that I felt I had to share my awe with my mother. I tugged on her dress like I used to as a child. "Mama, look! Do you see that bird?"

She squinted, using her hand as a visor, up at the sky. "Yes I do, baby," she chuckled, giving me a smile. "I think that's a falcon."

"He's pretty," I commented. Mama laughed. She picked up her skirts while standing up all by herself.

"Sure is," she agreed, and I beamed. I liked it when my mother understood what I did.

The day I saw that bird was the day that strangers moved into town. I only ever saw them once when Rikku and I were going out to buy horseshoes for Constantine, my father's horse. Or, well, Rikku was going to buy them, but I had just wanted to come in hopes that I could maybe catch a glimpse of Ed or Mr. Walker and say hello. I could've skipped behind him with the giddiness I was feeling. Do you know how _much _I had to beg my father to go with Rikku? Mama was the one who finally convinced my father to let me come, saying I would finish the pen later. I caught her telling him that I "had to move around after every once in a while or I'd get bored." I heard my daddy mumble something kind of mean about me under his breath, but it's not worth telling you. I never really let daddy get to me. Mama said it was because he was a frustrated man. I figured it was because Father liked to boss me around, since I never saw him doing it to Rikku. But oh, well, I'd always think. It never mattered to me if Father liked me or not. I was happy anyway. Happy-go-lucky, Mama would call me.

We got to take Constantine with us. I trotted alongside her, making noises that she responded to, while Rikku held onto her reins irritably. The sun was beginning to set in the sky. It was my favorite time of day, where I was able to wonder freely why it turned the sky a different color as it disappeared than it was when it rose. Rikku rolled his icy eyes at me. "Why do you do that?" He asked petulantly.

I glanced at him. "Why not?"

"It's weird. It makes _you _look weird." Rikku glared at me.

I blinked, unfazed. "What is '_weird'? _Is it because someone is different, or is it because someone is different than _you?" _

Rikku sighed heavily. He hated when I asked questions. "No, Zane, you're just _weird. _You talk to goats and chipmunks and birds and—"

"I talk to sheep," I corrected honorably. "We don't have goats."

"ZANE." Rikku sharply scowled at me. I walked backwards in front of Constantine, rubbing her big nose affectionately, not bothering to be swayed by my brother's own channel of emotions. Rikku was the serious one, the mature one. I was…well, I was Zane. I was my own person, my own everything.

But nobody could seem to accept that.

I whistled a tune while Constantine's feet clacked against the dirt road. The town was coming into view from here. We lived in a place called The Fireman's Circle, after the old blacksmith that used to live here, up until he decided to move away to Ignacia with his wife and son. Of course, the parents were dead, and the son, Richard, now owned the shop with _his _wife. That was where we were headed now; it wasn't too far away from The Fireman's Circle. I liked the trips to the blacksmith shop, called…um. I turned to Rikku.

"What's the shop called again?" I asked to fill the space in my own narration. My memory was poor at the time. I was a hummingbird who never focused on too many things at once, although you probably already assumed that.

"Four Weapons," Rikku grumbled.

I liked trips to the blacksmith shop called _Four Weapons. _There. My narration was complete. The trips let me view the natural trees, the dirts, as well as the grasses coming up just beyond the Fireman's Circle. I patted Constantine's side lovingly while I continued to whistle again.

I remember we were halfway through the town when we saw the black buggy posed outside of a trading shop. The shops owner, Mr. Trader, stood outside with his blonde hair pulled into a ponytail behind his head, and chiseled features casting shadows on his face. He blinked at a brown haired man standing just beside the buggy.

Despite myself, my stride was slowing. I was naturally interested in what was going on, and to see who this new stranger was. His circular glasses, perched on his nose, twitched when he spoke. "…some parts that _maybe _you could find use to?" he was saying. I stopped completely in the road to watch. Rikku whirled on me when he realized that I wasn't coming.

"Come _on, _Zane, daylight is wasting."

"No, wait…" I held up a hand. I wanted to see this.

Mr. Trader shook his head sadly. "Sorry, sir, but I can't do anything with a bunch of mechanical parts. I trade livestock and food products, not…robot pieces."

_Robot pieces? _I drifted closer as I realized, in the buggy, there was a woman sitting atop the reins of the two beautiful palominos leading the cart. She reached back into the hooded trunk to whisper something furiously to someone. The white visor hid them from me, but I had a feeling there was somebody interesting back there. Rikku kept hissing my name, but I officially was ignoring him, for I was interested in this brown-haired man and his robot parts. Robots were a little fairy tale that mother told me about, false, unreal. Was this man making fairy tales?

"Is there anyone else I could trade to?" the man begged Mr. Trader, but the trader shook his head.

"Sorry," he repeated, "but I don't think anybody is going to take that piece of junk."

The man turned away, forlorn, holding in his hands a little box that I leaned forward to look closely at. It appeared to be a box full of mechanical parts, of rusted joints and dowels of different sizes. I was instantly riveted. I liked mechanical things; I fixed broken things at home all the time. The man sighed heavily. He was young, his face crinkled with laugh lines, his glasses refixtured on his face when he moved them. He looked down at the box while Mr. Trader retreated back into his store.

"Well, little friend," he said wistfully, "looks like I can't find a home for you."

Who was he talking to? I wondered. Rikku stomped his foot at me. He told me he was going to leave if I didn't start moving, but as you can imagine, I was no longer paying attention to him. I bolted over to the dark haired man in curiosity. It was hard to handle when you were me—I liked to see things, everything, every angle and corner. The man glanced up, startled, when he saw me.

"Hi!" I gasped mannerlessly. Then I blushed. "I mean, hello, sir," I corrected myself.

But the man grinned. "Howdy-doody," he responded.

I had never heard that term before. It captivated me. "Howdy-doody," I repeated with a huge smile. The woman in the carriage's driver seat stared at me underneath her bonnet, but I ignored her, too. I was more interested in the man. "Sorry to be an eavesdropper, but…what's in there?" I pointed to the box in his arms.

The man glanced down at it. "Just one of my inventions," he said longingly. "My family just moved into town, but I needed some spare coins for us to pay for a few things…I don't have anything else to sell except this old thing, but no one will take it."

"Can I see?" I asked excitedly before I could contain myself. I would've kicked myself if it were humanly possible to do in public. "I—I mean—"

"No worries!" laughed the man. He held out the box. "Take a look for yourself."

In the box, cradled by other little gears and dowels and many other wonders that I had never seen before, was a cat. Or, well, what could pass for a cat. It was certainly robotic, with a layer of painted white skin over rusted joints. A peeling layer of false skin revealed the true clockwork underneath. I awed over this, drooling over the splendor of it. "She doesn't work anymore," said the old man. "I needed to fix her up, but I just don't have the time."

I reached in to pet the cat as if it were alive. The skin felt like _human _skin, but more smooth, less rough. This was something that I was in love with before I even knew how it worked. "How much?" I gasped, lifting the cat up. It felt like a real animal, heavy as one, in my arms, with her lids closed over her eyes. Whiskers so real actually protruded from her cheeks. The handiwork was amazing, and it was a _robot, _even though robots actually worked.

"Wait…what?" The man seemed startled that I wanted it. But I really did. I held the cat close to me while admiring the gears underneath the peeled skin. "You…want to buy it?"

I nodded enthusiastically, digging into my pocket for change. Mama had told me to go buy myself something when she had slipped me the golden coins on the sly. My father wouldn't have approved, but she whispered in my ear secretively, "Go buy something _you _want, baby boy," she whispered. "Anything." I had given her a hug, but hadn't known what to buy. What did I want that I didn't already have?

I knew now.

"Should this do it?" I held out the seven gold pieces in my hand. The man's eyes could've popped out of his head.

"Son," he gasped, "are you _sure _you want to spend all that on…_this?" _He pointed to the mechanical cat cradled in my arms. "It's…broken." I nodded.

"I need a friend," I told him happily. "Other than my sheep." Without waiting, I plopped the coins in his hand, adoring the fact that he looked touched by the money I handed him. I cradled the kitty in my arms knowing that I could restore it using Father's tools, as well as my own expertise in mechanical things. I looked at the cat again with blooming excitement. My first pet! (Lucky didn't count.)

"T-there's a panel in her belly," stammered the man. I glanced up. "That's where you'll find her controls, I guess, if you really want her…"

"I can fix her," I said, determined. I held her closer to me. "Does she have a name?"

"Um…no." The man blinked slowly, still in shock.

"That's fine. I can name her then." I rubbed her head happily. I couldn't express to you with words what I felt then. "Oh, thank you, sir!" I gave him a large smile, even as he handed me the box with extra gears and parts inside. I gently placed my new friend within and beamed more at the new stranger. "Thank you, Mr…"

"Julien," the man supplied. "It's Julien."

"Thank you, Mr. Julien!" I cried. He slowly smiled at me. It was sinking in that I had just bought his cat. "I'm Zane. Zane Montgomery." I stuck out my hand like no boy alive.

He took it in his calloused grip. "Howdy-doody," Mr. Julien grinned at me.

"Howdy-doody, sir!" I laughed. I had a new _friend. _"I hope you and your family settle in nice!"

"Well, I-I'm sure we will—"

"ZANE, you _dork, _get over here! Four Weapons is still miles away!" called Rikku's stern voice from somewhere behind Julien's buggy. I couldn't wait to show Rikku my new friend—which, turns out, in the end wouldn't handle well with either him or my father. But regardless, I waved one last time to Julien and his wife before trotting off with the box in my arms, cradling my new feline friend made of gears and metal. I thought I caught a glimpse of two pairs of eyes staring at me from beneath the white canopy of the coach, a set of deep, crystalline blues and a duo of bright hazel ones, but was probably mistaken. No matter, I ran off excitedly to go tell my brother of what a prize I had just bought from our new neighbor.

Little did I know, though, that meeting Mr. Julien would end up being the best and the worst thing that would ever happen to me in my entire life.

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**Please review! ^^ And go have an awesome day/night!**


	3. Chapter 2

**Sorry it took me so long to update, have been busy with American Sign Language stuff and NFAN updates. But, it's here now! YAY!**

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_DATE: 21/22 of June_  
_AGE: 14 _  
_STATUS: Human_

My father was not happy with me for purchasing the robotic feline. I bent my head in shame, kneeling on the rough wooden panels of our living room, his words lashing me worse than the strike of the whip I knew he would soon use. In front of me, the box holding my new friend gaped like a black hole ready to suck me in—and willingly, I suppose, I would've succumbed. I was afraid of my father more than anything. In fact, I think he was the only thing I truly feared when I was so young, so naïve. I didn't regret my purchase, but I regretted how I brought it up. Perhaps, if I were as wise then as I am now, I would've snuck around my new pet until I had managed to fully repair its broken pieces. But I wanted to show my mother the instant Rikku and I returned with Constantine's new shoes, and for my impatience I greatly suffered. I couldn't look at my father's angry, stormy eyes as he hovered over me with that _dreaded _lash in his hand.

My mother stood at his side, and I could feel her worrisome eyes bearing holes into the material of my shirt. I kept my back arched so I wouldn't have to face her, either. It took everything within myself to calm the tears that threatened to pour. I just wanted them to understand how I did. Maybe then, things would be different.

"What do you think you're doing, buying that piece of junk with perfectly good money?" snapped my father angrily. His voice filled the cabin, repeating itself when bouncing off the wooden frames. They pounded into me with every echo responding. "You're too damn childish for your own good. When I was your age, I was out there helping _my _father do the crops and run the business; a year later, I married your mama! I was a full grown man by the time I was you! And what do _you _do? Sit around and pretend like you're building a sheep fence that's taken you more than a month when all it shoulda taken you was an afternoon. You play with that damn sheep of yours constantly. Your head is in the clouds! Why can't you be more like your brother? Responsible, trustworthy, _useful." _

I snuck a peek out the corner of my eye at Rikku. Silent as a ghost, my elder brother hovered in the corner of the room, focused on twiddling his thumbs. This argument—that statement—I had heard multiple times in repetition from my father. He liked to think it was proper to compare me to my brother, but my mama figured it unfair because I wasn't as quick to the point as Rikku was. It may have been because I wasn't normal. Maybe. I never really got the chance to ask my papa why he hated me so much.

I didn't let it get to me today, like I did every other time I heard it fly out of his mouth in a scream. I knew that, to myself, I was enough to keep at least _one _person happy: me, and I was all that mattered. I didn't need to pretend to be someone I was not, nor did I ever want to engage in such a silly activity. I was fine just the way I was.

I was silent. My father would've kicked me in the head, for his foot was within firing range. I let him ventilate his true feelings about me and took the beating of verbal abuse with my heart deflecting it. I was okay with it. Not everyone was going to like me, and I accepted that just as well. My eyes stayed fixed on the broken clutter of Mister Julien's cat in the box, wondering when I would be able to start working on her. I was excited to begin.

But my father was not. He was purple in the face with all that screaming of his. "You dream and fantasize and question the world constantly, Zane. This place isn't _meant _to be questioned; you're supposed to accept it just how it is! Do we know why the grass is green? We don't _need _to! All we need to know is that it feeds our cattle and sheep, and those are the two basic living needs that keep your belly full and a roof over your head, but you can't seem to appreciate that. Nothing is good enough for you, is it? You always need to have an answer. Well, now _I'm _the one who wants a damn answer, boy! Why the hell would you buy a piece of crap from a stranger? Answer me, goddamnit!"

I kept my face aimed towards the floor. "I wanted a friend," I admitted honestly. I wasn't going to lie. I wasn't going to look at my father, either. I didn't want to see what he looked like, much less the gruesome reaction he had.

"You wanted a _friend?" _repeated the old man. "You want a _friend? _How is a piece of scrap a _friend? _Why don't you pull your head outta the clouds and go find some!" He yelled. My sensitive ears ached.

"I have some," I answered him. I thought of Mr. and Mrs. Walker, plus the blacksmith, and Mr. Julien. I considered them to be my friends, as well as Lucky and Rikku and Mama and, even if the feeling wasn't mutual, my father. I had plenty of friends. I placed my hands on my lap with a still motion.

"Really?" growled my father dubiously. "You have _friends! _Huh! Who would've thought, Meredith?" I saw his feet angle towards my mother. She shifted on hers. "Our retarded son has _friends!"_

"Zane is _not _retarded, Ross!" my mother objected loudly enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Mama never yelled. "Don't you say that about him!"

"Shut your mouth, woman!" responded my father in his cold rage. "What do you call it, then? Disabled? He isn't worth a _dime, _Meredith! What good is it to have one more mouth to feed if that mouth can't give anything back? He doesn't even know proper phonics! Toro Azai's sons are better educated than _he _is! His eldest is already married into another family, and his youngest is helping in the fields already—that boy is years younger than _he _is!" I saw an angry sweep of my father's arm gesture towards me. I blinked.

Toro Azai was my father's main arch nemesis. They were always competing in what Rikku described as an "unfriendly war." With the flip of a coin, each month the town would take a guess on which rival would end up with the best crop production and sales of animal meat. Their feud went back further than father ever cared to discuss, but I normally never paid attention to the rivalry as my father and Rikku did, always making icy glares in the Azai direction when they came upon a family member in cold blood. I was usually off performing Zane-like things: chasing butterflies, studying dewdrops clinging by a thread to the blades of grass in the lawn. Wars were nothing of my forte.

"Is that what this is about?" snapped my mother in response. "Your _rivalry? _You're worried about how your son's incapability is affecting your _social status?!" _

_Incapability. _Such a subtle word for such a large problem. I reached forward to absentmindedly tug the box forward, to peek into its cave at the kitty made of metal. I wondered how cold it must be inside that box, without arms wrapped around its tiny body. I knew what it felt like to go months without feeling the beautiful embrace of someone's hug or caress. I don't think it's fair when people go too long without one. It makes you lose sight of what really rests in your horizon, what actually lingers in your future, what you're building your reality from. These dreams in which we hope for truth in have brought us the magnificence of other human beings, both the good and the bad to destroy what we believe. We accept the things that we think it's okay to embrace, because we think we deserve what is coming for us. But I think that sometimes I take in the pain of everyone around me like a sponge, just so other people don't have to feel it. I normally wasn't affected by the pain's lashes. When I absorbed it, it became numb rather than dominant. My dominant emotion was pure happiness—after all, that was how I, as Zane Montgomery, had survived—and I had never felt what sadness tasted like.

I'd never actually shed a real tear, either. They were there, but naturally came from looking at beauty rather than an excretion of sorrow. I cried when I saw pretty things, like when I was able to watch the sunset. I did not cry when I was lashed with words, with whips, with knives and forks and violence. I looked at the cat again, and without thinking, grabbed it from inside and pulled it into my lap.

Through even the thick argument, my father saw what I had done. I stroked the kitty in my arms, almost cooing verbally to it with my lips pursed and cheeks warm. I loved the robotic animal even though I didn't know it well. I already felt the connection we had burning bright between the two of us. A special link, one that only we could access. We had a mutual experience within our lives, and I think that is what brought us closer together: We both knew what it felt like to be alone.

"_What _do you think you're _doing?!" _shrieked my father. I finally had the courage to look up at him. His eyes did storm, and his face was purple, as I previously predicted. His graying hair stuck to his face with the angry sweat coating his broad forehead. I glanced at the kitty, rubbing the delicate space between its closed eyes.

"I'm petting my cat," I answered.

My father's grip tightened around the laced handle of the whip. The coil snaked across the floor. "Are your damn ears broken?! Get _rid _of that! Return it back to the owner NOW! Did you hear me?! Move, boy! Do I need to pay more money to take you to the hospital so they can check your brain again?! No, I know what they'd find; they'd find a big, empty _hole_ in your head_!" _His face was burgundy with fury. He shook a meaty finger at me. "You _brainless _boy! TAKE IT BACK _NOW_!"

I didn't move. I wouldn't give up my friend, not even for my father. I held my pet closer into my arms, my heart thundering against the small head resting against my chest. I rubbed her head for comfort. "Don't try to fix me, Papa," I murmured quietly. I watched him glare at me through those slitted black eyes. "I'm not broken."

My papa whipped me hard, seventeen times that night. I can spare you the gruesome details of my skin peeling off, just to make sure you don't have to feel that or anything. If you're clairvoyant, I would presume it's definitely worse to read about those ugly descriptions while also comparatively experiencing it yourself. I counted to ease the pain when the impact hit my skin. I guess talking back to him wasn't my smoothest tactic, but I took the beatings. He robbed me of my pet and threw it in the box really harshly, causing certain damage to her, even while I screamed. He told Rikku to get rid of it, hopefully go find the rat who sold me it in the first place. Papa didn't even have the courtesy to take me into another room this time; he whipped me right then and there, with my mama watching and my brother staring in shock. Rikku's face had gone a pale, pale white. I never saw him that white after that day, and he just took the box, stared at me in shock, and left the house. I screamed for him to come back, but Rikku was gone. He'd taken my friend, he'd watched me get hurt, and he'd done nothing.

We accept the things that we think it's okay to embrace, because we think we deserve what is coming for us. But I now know that sometimes I take in the pain of everyone around me like a sponge, just so other people don't have to feel it. I normally wasn't affected by pain's razor. When I absorbed it, it became numb rather than dominant. My dominant emotion was pure happiness—after all, that was how I had survived—and I had never felt what sadness tasted like.

But now I could feel it. I could feel the despair. The agony. It tore through my heart, twisted my stomach. It was mean to me. And it hurt so, so bad.

I'd never felt anything worse in my entire life.

My father, when he was done, had grabbed me and thrown me outside, saying I couldn't come in until I finished the sheep fence. Raw, bloody, aching, I had tried to move, but it was like I was paralyzed by my new scars, especially the one that ripped down my face, the first initial hit I had taken. I laid underneath the stars, staring at them, wishing they would pick me up and carry me away to someplace better, a place where I didn't have a papa who hated me, where I wasn't so curious, where I was a better son, like the Azai sons. I wished I was someone who was strong, and determined, like Rikku was. I wished that I was a better worker. I wished that I wasn't so easily distracted. I wished that, more than anything, I wasn't retarded.

Eventually, my sorrows were gone quicker than my scars. I felt normal once more, hours later, might I add—I felt like Zane again: happy for no reason, curious about where those stars I stared at actually came from. I counted them, but when I reached fifty, I stopped, because I couldn't count any higher than that. Lucky eventually found me, trailing to my side, but the scent of the blood scared him, so he kept his brutal distance. I wanted him to come to me so I could bury my face in his coat, hold onto him for comfort, but if it made him more relaxed over there, I would accept that. I found interest in watching earth worms crawl through the grass underneath me. Where did they go? Was there a kingdom underneath the earth, where the worms thrived? With a smile on my scarred face, I crawled forward, following one who writhed through the dark green maze of the grass towards an unknown destination. The moon and stars were my only light source, but that light was better than no light. The blue reflected off the worm's shiny skin.

Eventually he disappeared under the ground, and I couldn't find any more worms to stalk. I crept across the lawn in what Mr. Walker called an "army crawl" towards the pen I was supposed to finished. I was too sore, too tired to continue making it. I curled up on the ground to sleep in the cold.

I heard the footsteps sometime later, jarring me from my light sleep. The crunch of boots against gravel made my eyes fly open. A dark figure was walking towards me, masked in the cloak of the night, his face indeterminable from the night. I shot upwards. I thought perhaps it was a burglar, until I saw the familiar icy blue eyes and startled face of my brother in the haze.

"Hi!" I cheerily greeted him, giving him a smile. I saw him wince.

"Zane," he choked. His voice was hoarse.

My smile faltered into deep concern for my brother. I scooted forward. "What's the matter?" I asked worriedly. "Are you okay?" I wanted to stand, but that would be asking too much of myself.

Rikku stood farther away from me, watching. He was looking at my scars, my torn shirt, dried by my blood. He inhaled a shaky breath. "Are you…okay?"

"I'm fine," I answered, brows furrowing in confusion. "As usual."

Rikku's head shook. He awkwardly stood there with the kink in his eye that told me he was uncomfortable. To be honest, and I will not lie, my brother sucked at expressing his feelings, but his eyes spoke the story he couldn't voice. I searched them. "How can you be so…"

"So what?"

"So _happy, _Zane!" My brother asked incredulously. He threw his hands in the air while looking around him. "I just watched you get completely _mauled _by…" he couldn't finish. His voice squeaked at the end and died.

I shrugged. "It's not like I haven't felt it before."

He groaned. It startled me. It was not an impatient groan, or a groan of intolerance, it was an exasperated groan. He buried his face into his hands. "You are really something," he murmured, voice muffled by his skin. I blinked at my dirtied hands. My blood didn't actually look like blood, but rather mud, caked under my nails and in the cracks of my palms. I traced them with my fingernail.

I couldn't help myself. I needed to ask. It nagged at me all night, although I don't do pity-parties. I prefer to think positively. Except right now, it was just a question that _needed _to be asked… You looked to your brother for support, which is the exact reason I turned to him for now, begging with my eyes rather than my voice. "Rikku?" I looked up at him. My brother looked at me. "Do you think I'm a retard?"

He seemed taken aback by my question. I knew when he didn't know how to answer. He blinked multiple times to process my question, mulling it over silently within. He cracked his knuckles. "No," he answered simply. The breath I did not know I had been holding rushed out of me. "I don't. I think you're very smart for a kid your age."

"Thank you." I leaned against the pen. I was tired. Rikku seemed to notice and held up a finger.

"Wait a sec," he said to me, then retreated. His footsteps softly padded up the porch steps, disappearing into the house I was banned from. I considered the possibility that he would not return, although after several moments, I found that my brother was more loyal than originally presumed. He reimbursed his presence with company in hand: a blanket.

I took his offering, the blanket mama made me long ago for my birthday. Since it was precious to me, it made the gift all the more heartfelt. I pulled it closer to myself with a restored, happy grin on my face when I realized it was heavier than normal. I gave my brother a look.

Rikku held a finger to his lips, eyes glistening. "Can you keep a secret?" He whispered. I opened the blanket.

"My friend!" I gasped. The kitty safely rested in the cocoon of my blanket, her lithe body intact, even after the hit my father had given her. Smuggled by Rikku, she was still here, still capable of being my friend. Papa would _surely _whip him if he knew that Rikku had defied his orders as I had. I wanted to give her back for the purpose of protecting my brother, but he must've seen it reflected in my eyes.

"Don't tell, and he'll never know, kiddo," my brother murmured. He crouched down beside me to rub the kitty's head. "If he does…I'll take it for you."

"_No_—"

"You've been hit way too much," Rikku interjected. "I never realized how…bad it was." His eyes averted to the kitty as a distraction, his means of escaping my awed look. "You don't deserve to be treated that way."

I shrugged. "That's how it is."

"Not how it should be," my brother answered. Without another detailed word, he rose, eyeballing the rising sun in the distance. I was exhausted, but I gobbled up any extra chance I got to have Rikku around me. He was normally too busy to talk to me, making this one of the best moments I had experienced in a very, very long time. His eyes looked to the pen beside me, and I saw the briefest of smiles play on his lips. It made _me _grin like an idiot, even with this scar puckering my eye, ripping down half my face.

Rikku looked down back at me, then towards the light _bleat _of Lucky Charmer. The goats, as well as my favorite, had ventured closer, but not close enough. I smiled encouragingly at them. "It doesn't bite," I said, pointing to the blood on my arms. Lucky ran away.

"That's enough, O Strange One," Rikku said, but he was smiling. Sort of. He reached down to help me to my unsteady feet. "What do you say we get working on this pen of yours?" He nodded towards the unfinished project.

My spirits soared. I looked at him with diligent excitement rumbling across my features. If I could physically feel the emotion on my skin, I knew Rikku could see it, too. He squinted at the fixture. "Really?" I gasped happily.

"Why not?" Rikku moved past me to grab ahold of the unlit lantern resting on a log. He searched in the darkness for the pack of matches. Inside myself, I was floating. Rikku. Helping me. That _never _happened. I raced forward to pluck it off the ground, enthusiastically passing it into his hands. Rikku struck a fire into the small piece of wood and turned on the flame of the lamp. His face was cast in an orange glow, disfigured by shadows. I saw a brightness in his eyes, too, that made me even happier, my pain from earlier long forgotten. He aimed the lantern closer to the pen so he could examine it. "I'll help you, as long as you don't start singing any songs. Do that, and I'm out."

I heard the smile in his voice, but acted serious. "Deal!" I cried happily, and ran forward to help him work.

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**Please review for me? X3 And go have a WONDERFUL day/night! **


	4. Chapter 3

**Some characters to be recognized from NfaN (my more prominent Ninjago series)! If you haven't read it, you might not be as familiar with them as others are—but no worries! You will get to know them! (Since this story is a tie in to NfaN, there will be characters who come in who have also been in any of the series' books, and what reaction one reader may have could be completely different from another. :3 It all depends on if you've read my NfaN series before.)**

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_DATE: 17 of December_  
_AGE: 16_  
_STATUS: Human_

Heavy rain fell over the slick mush of the winter's last breath, a murderous pelt towards such a simple form of nature. The sky masked itself with heavy gray clouds, pregnant with rain and sorrow, prepared to release more tears by the upcoming seconds. My lower lip puckered over my top, the umbrella becoming heavier and heavier in my grasp as the moments ticked by. The crowd gathered around me did little to provide massive warmth. My black gloves, stretched beneath my black overcoat, matched my black pants and shiny black shoes. The chill in the air was most dreadful, thick with tragedy and loss.

Purring on my shoulder, whiskers twitching instinctively, Fang wrapped her orange tail around my ear, sensing my discomfort. The rain could've destroyed her inner mechanisms and the clockwork I'd tried so hard to repair, working out of my own pocket to buy proper parts and tools needed for her automated resurrection. What a drag it would've been if she fell into a puddle! I held the umbrella closer to myself to deflect the gentle falling of the sky's rain.

The sidewalk was slick. People drifted past me as they wandered out of the church, all a thick throng of the same hue: black. Black, black, black, black. My eyes were sick of seeing the color so much. I had hoped that I would be cured by the beauty of the stained glass windows inside, but rather, it had only deepened my unnatural tire of colors. I glanced at Rikku, standing faithfully at my side with a mirrored stance to mine, only his extra hand was shoved into his suit pocket rather than stroking the robotic cat on his shoulder. She purred in my ear while I turned to him. "Have I ever told you how much I love the color white?" I said softly. Rikku's gaze flickered towards me. "I can't stand any more of this."

He smirked. He sported a good-aged, eighteen-year-old humor. "Isn't that expected from you little people?" He waved his hand at me. "You can never figure out what you want. One day you like cranberry, the next you like apple…"

I snorted, rubbing Fang's chin. Her whiskers twitched against my ear. The last of the grief-ridden committee, condemned to constant pew sitting, was beginning to depart. The church's doors remained closed. "What are you even talking about?" I asked, keeping my humor light.

Rikku's tanned skin crinkled with laugh lines. "This morning you wanted to come to the funeral, but now you can't stand it," he translated. He reached up to rub his nose. "I don't think you're very good at deciding what you want, much like the majority of young people do."

I rolled my eyes. Fang snickered. "Just because it's your birthday does not mean you have the right to crack jokes about our order of birth," I commented with a smile. It was Rikku's turn for the eye roll.

"You seem to have high spirits," my brother observed, gesturing for us to tail the end of the parade of black coats. I stepped my polished shoe into the sopping white sidewalk as I did so. Fang's metallic claws clung to my overcoat, resembling the mental nagging peeling away at my brain.

"Mr. Walker was loved," I told him. "I want him to know that he's gone in peace, and though I remember him, I remember him with great honor. I respected him." The Hearst was gone, and gladly had I missed it. It would be hard without Mr. Walker to take care of, his war stories, his laughter. I hoped he'd gone in a way that he didn't regret.

Rikku watched a couple of people wander past us at a hurried pace. They must've been trying to beat the rain before it evolved into a downpour. "You paraphrased your speech in those two sentences. Why couldn't you have just said that up at that podium instead of reading off that dictionary of a thesis you had going on there?" Teasing, Rikku gave me a sideways glance.

"Hey, I had to get a _little _bit of payback," I said, thinking about how many times Mr. Walker had purposely continued a speech about absolutely nothing to irritate me. I almost winked at the sky.

We moved down the sidewalk towards the throng gathered around Ed and Edna, the son and daughter-in-law of Mr. Walker. I decided it was best to pay a few last respects before wandering into the crowd. Fang made cat-like noises in gesture towards stander-byers who did nothing but stare at me regarding the fact that I did, in fact, have a cat sitting on my shoulder. I never left the house without Fang. She was my best friend, and sometimes my worst enemy, on her cranky days. I hoped she wouldn't bite my ear again and stepped towards Ed and Edna.

So young, once so happy, the couple glanced up at me in surprise, as if they hadn't seen me approach. "Oh, hello, Zane," Ed managed with a hoarse voice. I offered a weak smile. My gaze traveled down to Edna's bulging stomach with a sliver of prayer in her direction. She'd already been through three failed pregnancies—I hoped she was spared by the gods and got to keep this one. She noticed me looking and pushed her brown hair out of her excited brown eyes.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry, once again." I rubbed Fang's muzzle. I caught Edna staring at her.

"I know he meant a lot to you," answered Ed. "He adored you, you know."

I actually did know that, but it would be rude to say so. I smiled again. "Thank you," I replied. "He was a truly wonderful man, with equally as amazing stories."

Ed laughed. "They were pretty neat, weren't they?"

Missing Mr. Walker made my days fill with empty gaps of nothingness. Since I had no old man to go take care of, and Ed and Edna had already decided to move into a junkyard they'd bought for cheap, I would have buckets and buckets of free time. I usually spent leisure working for someone, mowing a lawn, doing stupid things around town like shelving the canned goods. I had tried jobs for trading centers, but those usually ended in drastic, epic misadventures; I had attempted to work at general convenience shops, except that never happened out well. My only other option relied on the job interview occurring on a rather bad time, but doable anyway, this evening. If I couldn't get into this restaurant, I'd be out of work, and would have to go looking in Ignacia for a job to take up.

I rarely was ever home. Off making use of myself, like my old, dying father prayed I would. My mother usually waved me away and told me to go make myself happy, which, as an elder teenager, could be taken in various formats. But I respected my mother's will to have what _I _wanted in my future. Since Ross Montgomery was bedridden with sickness—sickness of which I didn't know the origins, nor the name—Rikku was taking out the field a lot. As you can imagine, I had tried to help, but he didn't want me to spend too many hours in the sunlight. Pale skin and all.

Or maybe he didn't think I could do it.

I never doubted Rikku's faith in me, not since the night we assembled that sheep pen all those years ago. (Exactly a month from that date, Lucky Charmer had passed away on strange circumstances in which I figured were contemplated by my own father.) But he shoved me towards the simpleton jobs, the jobs that _anyone _could do, rather than the hard, task-working occupations I could've been taking. I wanted to do more than just put cans on shelves or mow the lawn or sort out the dollar bills from number of wrinkles in each. I wanted to do something that made a difference in another's life.

My focus stained on returning to my brother's side. Rikku had been joined by particular company, company of which was naturally welcome. Fang purred into my ear, the plastic ball in her windpipe rolling back and forth well enough to create the mock-sound of a real feline's purr. Happy with my craftsmanship, I was glad to have added that detail into her system before stealing away at my brother's side.

"Hi, Ming," I said, chipper. Her dark head swiveled to face me. My brother's unarranged marriage had taken place a year ago, his attraction heavily attached to a girl three years younger than him, which was still legal back then. Ming didn't seem to mind being courted by the dark haired man. It left a flush to her pale cheeks and a sparkle to her green eyes, especially when soon, they had plans to be taking over the family property. (As soon as Ross died.) I knew that she loved him equally as the love was requited. Ming had wandered into the crowd earlier to talk to an old friend whom had attended the funeral, but with her return came the brightness to my brother's face that hadn't been there before. He stroked her black hair with his extra had as he shielded her from the pelting rain.

Rikku had been pressing me, lately, to find myself a wife. Sixteen _was _the time of the most marriages back then, and I was sorely failing when it came to providing the same statistics as other teens my age. I wasn't falling in love the way he had, which I believe he had a difficult time accepting. The only thing I had fallen in love with was fixing broken things. And maybe Fang.

"Hi, Zane," she responded happily, her arms wrapped around my brother's torso. You can probably imagine I was the third wheel a lot. I had told both of them that they didn't need to come with me, that Mr. Walker was more of a me thing than a them thing, but they'd insisted they attend out of respect. Now, I'd have to follow them home with Fang on my shoulder and an awkward stance while they ogled at each other.

Fang made a noise. She sensed that I didn't like having to witness that. I grinned, despite myself, even as the proper Fireman's Circle greeting was initiated. Ming held out her hand, and for which I kissed it, but just barely since it was weird to do so under the circumstances that her husband—my brother—was standing there. She curtsied back.

Fireman's Circle was a bit of an old-fashioned town. Newcomers had to face huge transitions, especially with the rise of that urban city up north, Ninjago City. After being named the capital of Ninjago, its population had been becoming overwhelmingly large. I was just glad I really didn't live there. I hated large cities.

"Can we go home? The rain is getting thick," Rikku said, scanning the area. More and more cars were being piled into. Buggies were taking off into the distance. Perhaps it _would _be best to go home now…I nodded.

"Lead the way, Old Man," I gestured to beyond. Rikku rolled his eyes and earned a laugh out of the young Ming.

Fang rubbed her head against my neck. I scratched her head. "Hi, baby," I whispered when she made a small mew in my ear. She wanted to get onto the ground, run, play, as would happen when we returned home. I bid her be patient while following Ming and Rikku down the sidewalk. Her arm laced through his, and she giggled, he smiled, the whole process an exchange of love between two human beings. The factor of _love _had always fascinated me. Where did it come from? Why did we have it? I made a mental note to investigate further into this obviously psychological behavior.

Fang crouched on my shoulder, her eyes scanning the ground for mice. That type of thought process was something of her own. I hadn't found the coordinates or technological pre-plans in her thought system to become attached to chasing rodents, but she seemed to enjoy the typical-cat activity.

"Why, is that you?!" cried a voice. I paused. It sounded quite familiar, and for some reason I felt like it was targeted at me. I blinked into a crowd for a face that popped out. Whose voice was that? I wondered, while Fang seemed to have picked up on it, too. Her ears perked.

"You actually did it!" cried the voice again, and I whirled. Behind me stood someone I hadn't seen in a really, really long time. Mr. Julien smiled at me with that crazy wide grin of his, brown hair slicked from his face, revealing his dark eyebrows and big eyes beneath the lenses. I was abashed to see him, actually. I hadn't particularly thought about him lately. In two years, to be exact. It took me a moment, with the hints of his eyes flickering towards Fang, to realize that he was referring to my cat.

"Oh!" I chuckled, scratching her ear. "Yeah. I fixed her, like I said I would."

Mr. Julien grinned. He looked pleased—and impressed. "Job well done," he complimented. "And you look…different!"

"I had to repatch the skin a little. She had some spaces where—"

"I meant _you," _Mr. Julien interrupted, pointing his finger towards my chest. I couldn't stop my brows from shooting up.

"Me?"

"Yes!"

"Oh," I breathed in surprise. "Well…I'm older." I had not a clue how else to respond.

No matter the response, it seemed just fine with Mr. Julien. "You also have a scar over your eye," he noted, and I blushed. I ducked my head.

"Um…yeah." I didn't want to talk about it.

Mr. Julien's attention span was equivalent to that of a gnat. "I'm amazed at your handiwork," he said, reaching forward to tickle beneath Fang's chin. The cat's eyes closed. "You're a professional."

"I wouldn't go that far," I cautioned, "but I did relatively well. She works."

Mr. Julien's hand retracted. He looked me in the eyes, all seriousness taking into his being. He looked at me with the hint of a smug smile. "You've got a special talent," he said mystically. I paid no attention to his tone then, but later it would make sense to me. I shrugged one shoulder.

"I guess." I cleared my throat. I didn't know what much else there was to speak of—until I saw the two girls come trotting up behind him, of course.

"Daddy!" cried one. They both looked around my age. I glanced at the one who had spoken. Golden locks trickled down her shoulders in magnificent pools, a waterfall of beauty. Her skin was cream, her cheeks rosy, and her lips a beautiful rose. Eyes, chiseled and the deepest of aquamarines one could _ever _lay eyes on, turned unto mine with an inquisitional flare to her curious eyes. Her high cheekbones and heart-shaped face were emphasized by a ringlet around her head made of sapphire false flowers. Her curves were accentuated by a shapely black silhouetted dress. She was extremely beautiful. I felt my jaw almost drop.

The girl blinked at me, dark lashes falling to her cheeks gently. "Who's this?" she asked. Mr. Julien looked at her with a pleasant smile on his face.

"This is Zane," he said. "He bought the cat a couple years back."

"That was _you?" _asked the girl incredulously. Dumbfounded, I nodded, still trying to process her beauty. "Wow. And—Oh! The kitty!" she pointed to Fang, who cocked her head intelligently at the girl. Fang may not have been able to dance, but she was the smartest creature I knew.

"Really? Where?" the other shuffled forward. I looked to her.

I got the breath knocked out of me.

Her face was the same shape as the other girl's, but her features were completely different. The straight, narrow nose of the other was shorter and rounder on this girl, her hair red ringlets framing her face, fluffy and shiny. Big, innocent hazel eyes blinked at me from underneath blonde eyebrows. Her mouth was thinner than the other girl's, but darker in shade; her dress was looser fitting than the other's. Four little freckles dabbed across her nose. Her skin was pale, but not sickly; her cheeks were naturally rosy. I stared, and this time, I couldn't close my mouth. Even though the other one had to be descended from an angel, this one was…she was…I couldn't even prepare the proper words in my mind to describe her.

She was…well, she was _plain. _

And she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Mr. Julien waved in introduction. "These are my beloved daughters, Danielle," he pointed to the blonde one, "and Carolyne."

_Care-oh-lin-ee. _Carolyne. I repeated it in my mind as Danielle reached out her hand, in Fireman's Circle tradition, to be kissed. Dazed, I brushed my mouth across the silky skin of her hand, obviously well-taken care of. Dani smiled at me, but it was an empty smile; she was courteous, but not interested. I blinked at her.

Carolyne stuck out her hand. I took it in my own, and with a shiver, brought it to my lips. The skin was warm, but not soft; her palm felt slightly calloused. My hands were the same way from working day to night on little trinkets. Being the daughter of an inventor, did it mean she practiced the same sport as he? I released her hand almost reluctantly. The smile returned from Carolyne was bright, flamboyant, and, above all, flattered.

My head swam in an ocean of intoxication by sight.

"Daddy, the carriage is waiting, and I'm getting cold," Danielle said, breaking my trance. I'd been so focused on capturing the flecks of green in Carolyne's hazel eyes that I had forgotten the other one was there. Turning to them, I saw Mr. Julien squint behind him in search of their transportation.

Carolyne stared at the cat in awe. I glanced at her, thinking she was staring at _me. _It made me feel as though I were inaudibly uncomfortable. "Wow," she breathed. "You fixed her?"

"Yeah," I said, unsure of how else to respond. The gape of Carolyne's mouth turned into a smile.

"Amazing! You mastered a robot!" She reached forward to brush her hand across Fang's head, but paused, looking to me for permission. I blushed and, after a moment, nodded. She stroked my furry friend's head in amazement. I tried to look anywhere but at her. If I looked at her, then my end result would probably be death by suffocation. When I looked at her, I couldn't breathe.

"I suppose leaving is a good idea," Mr. Julien sighed. He looked to me. "It was nice seeing you again," he told me, waving his hand. I murmured a ditto. Danielle did the same gesture and turned to sashay away. Carolyne, however, was still marveling Fang, who soaked up the attention worse than a sponge.

"Carolyne!" called Mr. Julien from the distance.

Carolyne's eyes met mine, and she gave me a warm smile. "That's my call," she breathed. I nodded. "It was nice meeting you, Zane," she said, backing away. Her form disappeared into the crowd, a bobbing red head into the sea of black. Minutes after she had vanished, long gone from my sights, I was still reeling from my first meeting of Carolyne Juliens. From there, everything spiraled downwards.

And it all started with a contaminated spider and her vicious, infectious bite.

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**A/N PLEASE READ: **NOOOO this is **not not not NOT** going to be a mushy-gushy love story between a Ninja and an OC., so don't think that's the plotline. Sure, there is a little scandalism, but that's not how I roll. I normally do not do that with my OCs. **I do not make them to be the a girlfriend of the Ninja. DO NOT. That isn't the point here. The point is to tell the story (tied in to nfan) of Zane becoming a nindroid and everything leading up to it. AKA his human life. **Naturally, they (my OCS) have a point to being in the whole spiel. Carolyne (pronounced CARE-OH!-LYNN-EEEE, just like that!) plays a big part in the NfaN series, so she's got a big part in this too...okay? You should read NfaN (if you haven't already) to kinda understand.

BUT if thou hast not, thou wilt be fine! You do **not **have to have already read NfaN to understand this book! Okay? ^^ Don't run screamin, you're fine!

******So, with all due notice... x3 PLEASE REVIEW! And go have a WONDERFUL day, guys! (or night :P)**


	5. Chapter 4

**_*A lot of NfaN references in here that readers will understand  
_****Sorry for the long update, I have been busy writing NfaN Book 4! Gotta get that one running! ^-^**

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_Date: 28 of December  
AGE: 16  
STATUS: …Human_

The Black Widow is a dangerous spider, capable of consuming her mate whole and, worse, using lethal venom to bite a human. I never gave much thought to spiders—they were fragile, delicate little things that made webs in the corner of the room, that wove themselves beautiful dream catchers of their own. I found them incredibly fascinating, but normally tended to stay away from them. I believe it was the eight legs that normally frightened me. Little house spiders are nothing, things that Rikku squashed when he found instead of letting it free as I did. But Black Widows…

Though they seemed the stalemate of all impending doom, the Widows were prone to infections just as we were. No, not in the way you may be imagining now, to be stung by a virus and caught in between stuffed noses and communicable coughs. Widows, unlike us, walked everywhere, over anything, under anything, _through _anything. If there happened to be such a radioactive substance pooling on the ground, she wouldn't know otherwise, and would take that path unless she found another way. She would remain unscathed, but the infection that she just grabbed now mutated her into a host. The green, oozing liquid would cling to her body, yet spiders didn't know the concept of how evil the color green can be. No bath could wash away that darkness that she now contained. Though Black Widows were already such imminent creatures, she has just become the most deadliest thing in existence. She would then become a mother to millions of little baby spiders, baby spiders that inherited the traits of their maternal side: the Infection. Those babies would carry it in a never ending cycle throughout time, time that reached far backwards, time that perhaps you know of.

Long before time had a name, Ninjago was created by the first Spinjitzu master by using the 4 golden weapons of Spinjitzu; the Scythe of Quakes, the Nunchucks of Lightning, the Shurikens of Ice and the Sword of Fire – weapons so powerful, no one can handle all of their power at once.

When the Spinjitzu master passed away, his two sons, Wu and his mischievous brother, Damon Garmadon, swore to protect the golden weapons, but Damon was consumed with darkness and wanted to possess them. His darkness was inherited not by genetics, but by a creature that so slickly slithered through the long tall grass, unseen and deadly. An unfortunate incident brought him face-to-face with what appeared as a mere garden snake, but grew into something less friendly. This creature is what spat ubiquitous green liquid like a hose spits water. The venom ended in small pools scattered across the only central home for the snake that grew as long as it consumed. The home was a small forest built outside of an old monastery, where the Garmadon brothers lived united until darkness divided them. This is also where the Black Widows crawled, becoming poisoned by the journey, unable to be undone, unable to fix the broken.

The spiders lived undetected in their infections, but it was only until an accident that the contagious condition the spiders took on was revealed. A small little boy wandered through the wood, unknowing of what he was about to do. His golden hair gleamed under the filtered light in the forest, his cerulean eyes wide with excitement. His small feet had only learned just how to walk, his leg spasms entirely adorable to watch. Wrapped in warm trousers and a coat, his smile gleamed as he chased after the small butterfly he was intent to catch. Few feet behind him, his mother and father walked at a gentle pace, their expressions full of joy at the sight of their baby boy. They were a young couple, the girl not over eighteen and the boy not over twenty four. Their son's appearance had been caught from his mother's. They looked alike, the same golden hair and bright blue eyes, kind, feminine faces of gleaming delight. The mother, you have already met only few chapters beforehand. She wrapped her fingers around her husband's and murmured, "Look, Elomne; he's running!"

Elomne smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I see that, Danielle. Where is it that he's running to?"

"Do you not see the butterfly?" Danielle pointed towards the small orange creature fluttering against the wind. "Kyon just loves them. He finds them in the garden all the time."

"I do not like you bringing him into the garden," Elomne growled. His hand beneath Danielle's was steely cold. "I hear there's a strange garden snake roaming around. Did you not hear of the poor man who was bitten? Ho! He is forever tainted."

"I know of no snakes in my garden," Danielle argued. "Plus, it is good for Kyon to be around herbs."

"Herbs!" Elomne repeated. "You're not going to teach him your witchcraft!"

"I said nothing of the sort!" Danielle bent her head. "I mean to know of the healing kind."

Their bickering stopped at the frightful shout of their baby son. He had fallen to his bottom beside a crooked tree, where he held his finger in pain, a wail of hurt in the calm. Danielle and Elomne wasted no time running to him; they thought he had fallen and injured his hand in the impact, yet that is not of the case. Little Kyon could not talk; if he could, he would've told them about the spider that had been waiting in the shadow of the trunk. When the butterfly had landed across the scaly surface, he'd reached to capture it, but instead found himself being bitten, mercilessly, by a Black Widow intent to kill. Untreated, the boy brought the sickness back to the Fireman's Circle with him, and forever for that carelessness would Ninjago long pay.

The first victim was obvious to pick. He wasn't intending to catch it, really. It was more of an accident, as everything else he did was. He did not develop symptoms until long after the first forty victims were dead; his temporary immunity to the disease was a mystery. Young, handsome, and curious, the boy was just living as normally was when he caught it by accident from a girl who had come into contact with the child within the past few hours.

Oops.

I shelved the cans behind Mr. Trader's counter, my body covered by the long white apron that was actually my uniform. He had hired me only because I was Ross Montgomery's son, not because he thought I had work ethic; like my family before him, he gave into the rumors that I was a certified "retard." He usually kept me hidden from the customers, afraid I'd disturb them with some comment about nothing that was literally just that: nothing. My words were often shot down for no reason.

Business happened to be slow and I was allowed outside of the back room for once to stack cans and other goods onto the shelves. My fingers ached from hours of kneading my muscles last night. I think I'd hurt myself helping Rikku in the fields yesterday, but I could never be sure. Proper medical information didn't come until years after the Black Widow epidemic. Mr. Trader threw a broom at me while I was setting up a perfect pyramid of canned sardines. I caught it with quick reflexes. "Sweep," he commanded, and disappeared into the backroom. With a sigh, I stopped putting up the cans and turned to drag the hairs across the ground with complete boredom. I was glad to be having an input into my family's name, but I wasn't happy to have my profession revolving around storekeeping. I wanted to do more. More, more, more, but all I had was less, less, and so much less that it barely existed.

The shop's bell rang. I lifted my head, expectant to find another fisherman coming in for fresh worms, but instead finding a familiar, heart-shaped face moving into the gallery. Carolyne wore a woven bonnet to cover her lovely mane of veracious red curls, her traditional skirts clean and proven. In her hands she nervously passed a sack of what I presumed to be coins. I stopped my sweeping regimen to stare. I hadn't seen her since Mr. Walker's funeral last week—would she even remember me if I walked up to her and offered a hello? Afraid that I'd make a fool of myself, I ducked between the shelving, but peered around the boxed goods to make sure I could see her. Carolyne nervously approached the counter with a shifty gaze. Mr. Trader entered at the same moment, and smiled like he was the friendliest man on Earth. Which I could trial to: He was not.

"Welcome!" Mr. Trader beamed. Carolyne offered an upset smile back.

"Hello," she said weakly. Mr. Trader seemed not to notice. _What's wrong? _I thought, and felt my face drop. I could feel the worry roll off her body. Something wasn't right. I was tempted to run up to her and demand an answer, but doing so would result in disaster. I could already sense that. Besides, I was far too great a chicken than to walk up to her and pry into her emotions. It wasn't as if I _knew _Carolyne well. I placed my arm against the handle of the broom, leaning against it, and listened closely.

"What can I do you for?" Mr. Trader inquired. Carolyne scanned the shelving, her eyes slowly roving across it—worried that she'd see me, I jumped further behind the shelf. My heart leaped into my throat. I would just listen, then.

"Do you carry, um…Dapplejuno Juice?" asked Carolyne's sweet voice. I pursed my lips. I had never heard of such a liquid before.

"I…I'm afraid I don't know what that is," Mr. Trader said after a long moment. "Are you sure that's what it's called? Maybe you—"

"No, I'm pretty sure. I was just checking." She sighed heavily. "I don't suppose you'd know of anywhere that _would _have it?"

"I'm afraid not," Mr. Trader said, sounding sincerely sorry. I pursed my lips, wracking for a place where I could've heard that brand before, but I honestly didn't. Was it exotic? Did it come from Ninjago City? Had I seen an advertisement on the radio for it before? I never figured that I had. Feeling disappointed, I listened to Carolyne's small, parting goodbye. Her voice held a wistful note. I considered the possibility that offering help would bring up notice to me again, although my desire to be noticed by Mr. Julien's daughter was a mystery to myself. It would be stupid of me to make an appearance. After all, I was the worse son of Ross' children…why would Carolyne want to see me?

I leaned back against the shelf with a heavy sigh, but the act didn't go as easily interpreted.

My weight forced against the sill, heavy many pounds too much, and counterparted the max capacity of the shelf. I heard the groan a little too late, parting myself to turn and watch in horror as the tall mahogany wood began to tilt backwards. The contents spilled backwards in the fit of falling. As if it weren't bad enough that I were knocking down a shelf filled with merchandise, it decided to adopt the domino effect and, with a loud roar of impact, slamming into the shelf behind it. I jumped at the vibrations it sent out. My cover blown, Carolyne and Mr. Trader whirled towards me, their own eyes becoming wide as they watched the next shelf slam into the following, each emitting a loud thunder of protest and squeak of elder wood dying. Glass items shattered, boxed properties shaking, and the whole room became a means of the first idea of surround-sound. There was nothing but loudness in my eardrums. I plugged them to fend off the screech, but it would never divide the mistake I'd just made.

Eight shelves later that happened to be the only eight shelves in the whole store, the noise died into a stunned silence. I stared at what had become a long line of broken things and shattered ledges. I didn't want to look at Mr. Trader. With my father's sickly permission, he might as well run over towards me now with the whip and hit me till there was nothing left inside. My cheeks flamed. I was ashamed instantly. _Look what I've done, _I thought, and slowly thought the word "useless."

The pound of footsteps matched the thunder of my heart. Carolyne had rushed towards me. "Zane!" she cried, and I whirled. She had remembered my name! "Zane! Are you okay?" She asked.

"Is _HE _okay? Do you see what he just _did!" _Mr. Trader screamed. I clamped shut my eyes. I was certain to lose my job now. "Oh, my merchandise—do you _know how much it costs to repay all this! _Oh, it is coming RIGHT OUT OF YOUR POCKET! YOU'RE FIRED! I AM GOING TO CALL THE AUTHORITIES ON YOU! THIS IS COMPLETELY—_" _

Carolyne pretended he didn't exist, turning her wide hazel eyes on mine. "_Are _you okay?" she repeated. My cheeks heated. I would most certainly not be when I got home. With father sick, he'd probably ask the whipping to be done by Mr. Trader himself. Or even worse, to my holistic horror, what if he asked _Rikku? _Carolyne reached out her hand, her fingers wrapping around my wrist in a worried gesture.

And that is how I became the first victim of the Black Widow's disease. Arachnaeus, as it's formally called. But at the time, it really was not the least of my concerns. My first priority _then _would be finding out how in the heck I was going to live past the day that I destroyed Mr. Trader's shop. It was a true guarantee that it would _not _be easy…

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**I AM so sorry if this wasn't my best quality. -.- So, so sorry. I've just been so busy lately with NfaN that DotN wasn't getting that much love, so i tried my best, but it's hard to write when you're not in your best mood. *heavymothersigh I guess that means that I'm going to have to give you something EXTRASPECIAL next time. :3 **

**Please review, and go have an AWESOME day/night!**


	6. 5- THE TURNING POINT

**THE TURNING POINT**

**DATE: **_28 of December_  
**AGE: **_16_**  
STATUS: **Human…for now

My father was furious with me, as you can probably assume. With his illness taking to him and disabling him from helping in firewood sales, it was I, and my brother, who had to provide for our commonwealth home, and our money stocks were becoming quickly extinct. Constantly weeping with frustration, the sky bled tears of both ice and water, sometimes clinging in that mad interval in between. The crops somehow managed to make the majority of themselves unharmed by the strange weather occurrences, although the lack of some important plants was obvious. After all, normally, there was never snow in the Fireman's Circle. We were too close to the Sea of Sand to be able to gain such chilled lashes by Mother Nature herself, yet this year was proving to be stranger than I had originally perceived. The snow never stayed long, dying quickly after it hit the ground, but it still amazed me to see such beautiful, intricate fixtures of nature tumbling from the cloud's breast. My mother had always told me that snowflakes came from Knitting Faeries, who sat in the clouds and constantly whipped up special, tiny, white blankets that would soon become part of a larger blanket to coat the earth. I had believed her for a long time, up until a certain point in my life—not my human one—that made me know that there were no Knitting Faeries who made snowflakes.

It was snowing outside. Snowing with little crescent cries of ice that never remained. They hit the ground and died upon contact with the sodden earth; I mourned for them, as well as mourning myself, even as Mr. Trader had angrily shoved me onto my porch steps and made me throw open the door. He had forced me to admit, aloud, to my parents and consternated brother, what I had done. The cost of my stupid mistake was far greater than anything my family could pay off, with our firewood-selling business _and _our crops _and _the measly four-dollars-every-two-hours wage I had gained. I had destroyed half of Mr. Trader's stock within just a few moments of time. Time, a delicate subject, that seemed to be my best friend and worst enemy. I wanted to go back in time and redo this awful crime. My head stayed bowed, for I knew that my father, who was ridden to holding a cane as his weakening body moved, shook with anger and despise towards me. If I looked at him, I'd have to face what I'd done, and I knew that my punishment would be awful. I'd gotten whipped so many times in my life that it would be expected that I would grow immune to the pain, unable to comprehend it anymore for over-usage of that means of punishment. I kept waiting for the day he hit me and I never felt that pain. But it seemed like every new lashing was the first time I'd ever gotten whipped all over again. The slices always came raw, came new, came young. I lamented my own self-being. This time, there would be nothing stopping my father from running over and strangling me until there was no air to breathe, no heart to stop in my lonely chest. Mr. Trader proudly exclaimed every detail of my mistake, of my small action causing a spiral of events, to my mother and father, who stood starstruck in the middle of the kitchen. Rikku's form was a blot in my peripheral vision, but I knew he was yet again shaking his head in awful wonder. His little brother had done it again, and this time, it could cost more than just a couple of pennies.

I always wondered myself what people meant when they called me 'special.' In the beginning, I'd perceived it as a petty compliment, believing I had always misinterpreted the sneers on humans' faces for something it was not. Now, I could not help but think: Did they mean it completely opposite? Was it aimed as an offensive reference?

_Yes, _I decided that day, _they do. _

It never bothered me. I repelled insults and negatively sharpened comments better than bug spray at the convenience store. But I had to ask myself again what made them believe I was not smart enough to do such human, normal things. I turned my head to my feet and stared at the dirt clinging to the ends of my trousers, thinking deeply about what was going to happen next. Mr. Trader's furious demands towards my father were all centered around fixing what I had done, and my father replied calmly, kindly, a tone he never used when addressing me. _What is it, _I thought curiously, _that makes me so different from Mr. Trader? We are human beings, but in my father's eyes, we are so different that he must treat him better than me. _My father promised he'd somehow repay Mr. Trader, after which the store owner claimed that he would call the authorities to haul me away if he didn't have the money needed to repay him by the end of the week_. _That gave us four days to somehow scrounge up the costly impact of 12,392 dollars it would take to repay Mr. Trader for the objects I'd broken. At the announcement of the price, I cringed towards my wet feet.

It took coaxing from my parents to eventually settle him into a dull blur. I can't remember exactly everything said, but soon, Mr. Trader was gone, and the house was so quiet, the dropping of a feather could've been heard. I never once raised my head. If I met the eyes of my limping father, my mother, my brother, I would burst into ashamed tears, tears of fear and indecision and shame and guilt. It was the scariest thing I know I'd ever experienced up until that point; before, when I did something stupid, it was usually something overcast, and I ended up with a few lashings, but it was a punishment I was designed to survive. My father was roaring silently with anger, a flame in the fireplace that was prepared to leap from its crest and swallow the house whole. The anticipation of how badly this would end consumed by body in its shallow grasp.

My voice box responded before I knew how. My lips moved, but inside, I was melting. I was terrified of what I knew he would do to me. "Father, I'm so sorry—"

"DO YOU THINK SORRY IS GOING TO PAY BACK MR. TRADER?!" He shouted, and my chin dug itself deeper into my chest. "IS IT?! DO YOU KNOW THE EXTENT OF WHAT YOU'VE DONE?! DO YOU THINK WE HAVE THE MONEY TO _PAY _FOR THAT IN FOUR DAYS, ZANE?! HAVE YOU CONTRIBUTED _ANYTHING _TO THIS FAMILY? HAVE YOU…"

His screams fell into routine. The 'worthless' objections to my existence followed suit, things I'd heard all my life and repeatedly rejected time and time again. My heart in my ears was all I could hear. I knew that what I had done was the worst I'd ever done to my family, for there was, honestly, no way we would be able to pay for the extents of the cost. How I'd managed to knock over every single shelf in stock, I could never have explained to you. To this day, I look back on it while scratching my head, my lips curling and wondering how on this sweet earth I had managed to screw everything that I touched into nothing. I scuffed my shoes. I feel bad for tuning him out so much when he yelled at me—my father, in reference—but it was hard not to ignore his mainstream obscenities. I would have to bargain for my life now. It rested implacably in his hands, motionless as a prey interlocked in the eyes of its predator. There was no telling how he would respond in my penalty.

My father was disabled for a long time since contracting his disease. It was nothing like the epidemic that swallowed the Fireman's Circle whole, the Arachnaeus, the Spider's Kill. In fact, later in life, I figured it to be a cancer that I had been unable to formally diagnose at the time of his contagion. However, at the time, I was as clueless as I know I was. Wishing my father to be dead was not a first experience for someone as innocent as I was. I had only ever done it once beforehand, and had immediately apologized to the gods I listened to in my head for saying such a regrettable thing, but when I thought it that day, this day I describe to you now, I did not feel shameful. His hate for me was unrequited in the first years of my life. It was unnecessary. I had never once responded so fitfully to my father as he responded to me. He purposely tried to hurt me. Yes, that is obvious, but as a child, you try your hardest to deny that someone may be trying to make you suffer, until after they are dead your realization finally notices. My father was physically unfit to push a lashing onto myself. His muscle inabilities, his crutches, his canes, his sore bones, his everything is what made him ailing to harm me. But my father was a smart man. He had his own way of thinking. It was only until that point that I had ignored everything he was saying to me; when he uttered his next words, my hearing kicked in, and so did my rush of fear and adrenaline.

"Rikku, get that whip," he commanded. How many times had I heard this before? Millions, but that was not what brought my attention to it. My head finally snapped up in time to see my brother numbly retreating into the hallway to grab it off the hook beside our front door. My father's eyes gleamed with hate, despise, malice. He glared so evilly at me, his nostrils flared, chest heaving, graying form bent over his crutches, that I knew it before he even had to say it. A strike, lightning-fast, of repentance ruffled my feathers. In the meantime, I heard Fang's soft purr come as she wandered into the room. She sensed the stress, but there was nothing she could've done.

"I can't hit you this time, as much as I'd like to. I'd break my weak old bones." My father's gravelly voice crawled through the air. It coiled around my throat like invisible hands and tightened so badly I couldn't breathe. "But you need to be taught a lesson." Typical, yes. This is not what captured my attention. It was the gleam in his eyes. He was going to _enjoy _making me suffer. "Your brother is healthy as a horse. Aren't you, Rikku?" He turned halfly to my brother. My blood ran cold.

Ming was not home that day. She would not see what was about to become of me, and for that, I am certainly grateful. I do not think I could've suffered the humiliation. A child of the family, unable to listen, do, think on his own, and to be hit in front of my older brother's wife would most positively affect how she perceived me from then on. How wretched.

My brother's face fell pale. It ran as white snow would, collecting whiteness as more flakes fell. I must apologize to you for describing yet another one of my punishments, for that is not the basis of my story, to tell you things such as this, to gain your sympathy. I am telling you this time will be the last you will mentally see me being hurt by my father's hand. That is a proud event for me to tell you of, and it rings truth, for I do not lie to protect my benefits. This is the day that changed everything, that turned my future into what it is about to become. In a way, I needed my father's cruelty to eventually spoil me into the hardy soul I am today. Without that type of labor, I may have been softer, less able to handle wounds and soldier's aches. No doubt that he helped shape my personality for the better. Yet still, I cannot lie; I hated him for what he had done to me.

"Father…" Rikku whispered. His voice was not able to carry further. He had not yet moved to retrieve the whip as commanded to, but his fingers I could see twitching in the candlelight. His expression was shock white, afraid, and I wanted to take the fear from him. Seeing my brother hurt was never my favorite pass-time. I wished there was something I could've done to make it less painful for him, even if it was more painful for me.

"Don't _you _defy me too!" Father growled. He never once took his hateful eyes off me. And his lips, cracking underneath his moustache, warped into a wily grin. "You're my good son! Get that whip!"

Rikku slowly backed out of the room. His expression of shock never changed.

I shriveled back against the wall. I knew it was a bad idea to grovel, but I had already done screwed up myself anyway, and to defy was all I could've managed. "I-I couldn't handle another whipping, Father," I pleaded softly, trying to capture some sympathetic part of him. "You've slashed me so many times this week, I…I couldn't… I couldn't survive it if you did again."

This, again, was the truth. He had hurt me so many times that I was now beginning to fear what I never had before. I could not stand losing any more blood. The loss would station me into some hypersensitive coulomb of death, for which I could not exist within. The groveling fed my father's desire. It also made him want to do it more. To him, the thought of losing life's only burden would make paradise grow quicker into the fields of his miserable life. My mother didn't want this any more than I did. She turned to my father and latched herself onto his arm, shaking him gently with her words. Her sweet voice cried octaves I did not want to hear. It was the voice's channel of pain. Pain, which I thankfully took from others, but never had the favor returned. "Oh, _please," _she begged him, "don't do this! Don't do this to him! You know he'll die if you hit him again!"

"_I _won't be hittin' _anyone, _woman, now get off me!" He shoved her away with a force that knocked Mama onto her behind.

She looked startled with muffled tears peaking in her eyes. I ran towards her, kneeling to the ground beside her and pulling her into my arms. Mama's pretty blue eyes stared into mine with sorrow. Her gentle hand reached for my cheek, caressing me without need to. As it normally did when Mama wasn't happy, her lip bobbed fitfully. "Oh, baby," she whispered, her fingertips skimming my cheekbones upwards towards my sideburns, playing with my ear between her forefinger and thumb. I hated the pain on her face, and bent down to kiss her cheek, pushing all of what I had into it. Her skin was damp, with salty tears I could taste against my lips. I knew that if I just let this go, my mother would feel guilty forever, something I couldn't bear to palate. If she saw how frightened I was, how scared I really was inside, it would break her heart. I didn't want to see anyone's heart breaking. So I smiled at her, my best smile without showing my teeth, to prove to her I was okay. It was a lie. I never lie to protect myself. I lie to protect others from the truth.

Mama burst into sobs. I guess the smile was never her favorite, but I continued to smile so she would hopefully understand that I would not hurt. "It's okay, Mama," I said softly, pulling her closer into a hug. "I'm okay."

"No," she whispered, sobbing into my ear. Her arms wrapped completely around my neck in a chokehold I couldn't shake. Her body trembled against my own. Mama's whispers were all I could hear aside from the thunder of her beautiful heart. "You're not."

Rikku came back with the whip. I knew that it was Judgment Day. I held Mama a little closer for the time being until my father came over and ripped her out of my arms with a force I didn't think he acquired. There would never be any regrets for me, far off into the future as I look back on what I have gone through. My lives, both robotic and human alike. I've seen so many things, from the barrels of guns, to the glowing eyes of a hypnotic snake, to the empty holes of a skeleton's hollow eye sockets, and powers beyond my greatest imagining. I have witnessed death, life, and rebirth. I have seen babies born, children raised, old friends withering and dying. I've seen rivalries that burned deeper than cold blood, seen whispers of doom that succumbed to the great power of friendship, and love, and humanity. Humanity is a person's greatest weakness. And our worst enemy is not of material matter. Our worst enemy is within all of us, every human, and sometimes even robots. It is emotion.

There is a place, within each of us. It is a place concealed by the darkest pits of our mind, a place only we can access ourselves. It opens itself up to us amid tragedy and vain, windows swinging wide for our souls to clamber through in need of an escape of humanity. Some, in life, spare plenty of their grievous moments buried inside its dark tumors, its wretched glazed walls fixed with barely a brim of candlelight to shed for sight. Some never find the nirvana, the peace offered to them by the brinkish fold of life's rays. Some instead stick to what is referred to as The Cave and its lowly, cracked notes of imperfection and inner hate. It is where one goes to hide from themselves, from their problems, to swallow themselves whole instead of facing the world above them. Within this cave, a small little switch, hidden in the dark, unable to be found by most humans, yet there are some who locate it to their advantage. This is what is often referred to as the Humanity Switch. It is a gruesome choice that humans have inside of themselves with a privilege they should not be given, yet somehow are by the gods who created the humanly beasts. The Humanity Switch can be flipped at any time. It allows us to shut away our emotions, allows us to brick a wall before their flooding misleads to stop ourselves from feeling these terrible things anymore. Once the Humanity Switch is flipped, it can no longer be turned back on; it stops one from feeling _any _emotion ever again, and to that sense, it means _any. _There is no emotion after. No love, no anger, no rage, no hate, no pain nor any other reprimadable thing we as humans feel. They are gifts, and they are curses. Not many people are able to find it, like the Cave where it lies, hidden.

I am made of emotion. Living without it would be difficult. But I long to find it, just once, find it, and turn it off, because it is so easy to not feel than it is to feel.

Death is peaceful and quiet, easier than life, which is harder to swallow. To die is to cease moving; to live is to move constantly. Out of the two times that I have ever experienced death, I can assure you, however easy it is perceived to feel, it is not. It is no better than life. You cease to be so quickly, so suddenly, that your last thoughts never quite computed with your brain. It is unbecoming. It is…horrific. Nightmare-ish. I do not recommend it. In most cases, death is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Death causes more issues, perhaps not for you, but for those you have left behind.

My brother descended upon me with a face of hurt. I lay on the floor, my arms spread across the wood beside me, my back pressed against the cool surface. This is where I had fallen when my father took Mama from my arms. Little did I know this was the last time I'd ever see her alive, and I mourn not having told her how much I love her. She should've known. In a way, I feel as though her spirit knows, and thinking that is easier than believing otherwise.

I stared at the ceiling. I searched within myself for the Cave. I would be able to hide there, away from my physical body as Rikku hit me, which he now hesitated to conducting. I wanted to find it so I would not have to sit there and ache as I died. I searched, searched, searched every part of me. My emotions ate at my mind, making tears slip out my eyes, even while Rikku raised the coil over his head and tears ran down his cheeks, whispering, "I'm so sorry," towards me, before he finally came down on me with force that was thankfully not as hard as my father's, but painful all the same. I knew he wouldn't disobey father. Rikku had only ever been hit once in his lifetime. It was not his nature to defy the authority figure in the house.

But it sure as hell was mine.

I swallowed my wails. It was like swallowing vomit. It was disgusting. And then, when he hit me the third time, there was a glimmer of light within me, a discovery that I gasped in awe towards. My heart beat faster, warm blood pooling my body. I stared into the dark cave that I had found inside of myself, and smiled. _The Cave. _

Inside it, I felt nothing, and I smiled into the darkness. I could not see anything. I ran my fingers across the false, damp rock formation around me, with my mind's eyes the only way to see them. I didn't feel the lashes of the whips. For a moment, I considered the idea that I could be dead, but decided being in the Cave was more fun. I crawled across the cool surface. Small rocks dug into my palms. It felt to cool in here, the air refreshing, real, and clean. There was no pain to be had in here. No anything. I smiled again, knowing of what I had accomplished, and came upon a switch.

I felt it with my fingers. It felt like the intricate light switches in the Walkers' house, because they could afford lightbulbs. I cocked my head, bird-like. Interesting…Was this the Humanity Switch? Was this my chance to be able to feel as I did in the Cave _forever? _Would, if turning this off, I be able to be pain-free for the rest of my human life? I felt the switch again in the darkness. Living is so much worse than dying. If I flipped this, I would be able to never feel hurt again. I could take other people's pain, and I wouldn't feel it. We could all be happy if I flipped this switch. I would no longer be stupid, naïve, and I wouldn't disappoint anyone ever again. I wouldn't be a retard. I wouldn't be hated, wouldn't be insufferable, wouldn't be frowned upon, would be who everyone loved. I would be just like Rikku. Everyone would like me, and I would never, ever be alone again.

The temptation of the life I have always wanted consumed me. I took a deep breath. My fingers closed around the small lever.

And I turned it off.


	7. Chapter 6

*Thanks to anonymous reviewer for giving me this idea!*

**UN-NFAN READERS: YOU MUST READ THIS NOTE!**

**There are terms in here that may confuse you. Here's what they are:**

**Prince of Darkness: **The Prince of Hell  
**The Great Battle: **NOT THE FINAL BATTLE! The Battle between the King/Prince of Hell and the Green Ninja, AKA the Yang  
**The Yang: **The good half of the Yin/Yang symbol that the continent of Ninjago is based off of, also The Green Ninja  
**The Yin: **The Dark Island, also known as the Dark Island's ultimate ruler. "The Yin"  
**The Gates: **The Gates of hell that bar off the Underworld and the Human world, opens into Ninjago.

**EVERYONE MUST READ THIS NOTE!:******

This chappie is far, far off into the future of Zane's story. He's TELLING the Ninja about his experiences, which is how this story came about, and Jay interrupts him. So this **chapter is set in real time, when the Ninja are in their twenties. After this chapter, the story converts back to Zane's POV from after he turned off his Humanity Switch. **When Zane says he's "human for the second time" it means that he returned from the dead as a human after he died as a robot. Okay? Thanks!^-^

**NFAN FANS****: **There areplenty of references in here to NFAN, and a lot of **foreshadowing **for the series.

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**DATE: **Far, Far into the future of this story  
**AGE: **Reborn, 21**  
STATUS: **(Human for the Second Time)

"YOU DID _WHAT?!" _Jay screams loudly, his hands flying to the side of his head in the action I would presume seen when your favorite character of a soap opera admitted a wheel-turning secret no one anticipated. From my lotus position across the floor, I covertly am vexed by his outburst in the middle of my tale. As a re-human (our universal term for my rebirth from death as a robot…a part of the story you may have already seen coming, but have not met yet) (which is indefinitely alright) I find myself to be more…irritable…than I would've been back in my first-human-stage days. Or even my robot days. But I suppose it isn't always others I must blame for my human-ness; after all I have everything to be grateful for, under the circumstances that I have returned from the dead to step back into the human plane once more. My brothers cannot be alone without me. They have already lost so much.

No. When I say 'my brothers' I do not mean Rikku. He has since passed from this earth. As I said before, this is far, _far _into the future of this story. You probably started off reading it very confused. But I am in the middle of telling my tale to my family, unrelated by blood, and Jay—my friend, my comrade, my brother—interrupted me. I asked for no interruptions when I began this story. It appears that my wish could not be properly fulfilled.

"HOW COULD YOU TURN OFF YOUR HUMANITY?!" Jay screeches. I am perched in the middle of the floor, peacefully had my eyes closed until I heard him. Keeping my eyes closed helps me recite the story better, for I feel as though without the silence and the blank slate of black beneath my eyelids I cannot say anything correctly. I am momentarily flustered by the event that I cannot remember where I left off, for I have been disrupted in my peace. I peer at him crossly from underneath my eyelashes. My head has been bowed. I do not intend on raising my head much, for fear of distracting the peace I have woven for myself.

"Jaaayyy," I hear Kai say in an altercated, angry voice. Jay has been sitting on the couch this whole time, sitting quietly next to Nya with his arms curled around her and the silent bundle of blue in her arms. Her hair has grown out long to the middle of her back. She glows with motherly rays of sunlight, a happy, thin-boned face and bright brown eyes. She reminds me a lot of my mother's enthusiastic outlooks. I wistfully pick at the fray of my jeans but remind myself that where my mother rests now is better for her. I smile knowing that she has reached peace.

Kai is perched on the arm of the couch. Since it has been four years since our extreme Ninja journeys, and his days as an accused killer are gone, his hair has subsequently grown out of the deep, sullen black that it had been dyed, and cut back to its natural messy fashion. Hardly as pointy as before, because he has grown up—he is twenty two as of a week ago. He looks at Jay with an annoyed but amused look on his face. "You interrupted him! He said _NOT _to interrupt him."

"YEAH but did you HEAR what he SAID?!" Jay gestures to me with his free arm, waving it through the air and motioning to me. Jay's haircut has never changed. It is still short, it is still neat, but his eyes are older, and he is wiser. Like in the eyes of all three of my brothers, there is a knowing look within their colored irises, an understanding inside of their pores. They have all experienced what it is like to lose someone, to withstand dangers, to endure heartbreak, to experience love, to watch things wither. They have felt before these emotions so damning to humans, but yet they still survive the turmoil of winter's kiss as it pours on them a trillion tiny grams of life's horrors. They are strong. Sometimes I believe they are stronger than me.

Nya gently bats her husband's leg. "Shh! You'll wake up Zach!" She whispers furiously, and cradles the blue lump to her chest. I see, underneath the blanket, the small shiver of their son's body wriggle closer to her. Nya beams down at him and buries her face in him. I feel happy for them. Parents, and happily married, with their whole lives stretching ahead of them. Jay glances down, and I see that similar softening of his face that comes when he looks at Nya. That look of pure love. I wish I knew what that felt like.

"Yeah, we _really_ don't want that," says a deep voice from my side. I look at Cole sitting in the recliner of our small, two-bedroom apartment that we share. The brown leather is scratched and dim from the many, many uses it's endured. Cole and I actually bought it at a garage sale when we first moved in here. I liked it because it was comfy, but I think Cole likes it better when he has a lot of paperwork to do, because he usually sits inside of it and will work there. I prefer the kitchen table. Especially when I am doing taxes. "That kid screams like a frickin' banshee when he wakes up."

"Banshee!" squawks a little voice from his lap. It is a four year old little girl with a small doll curled in her fists, sitting comfily on his knee. Cole bounces it repeatedly to make her laugh. Her name is Rie Tanaka, and she is Cole's daughter. I could not express to you how much she looks like Cole. Same silver eyes, same black hair, same olive skin tone—even their noses are similar. (Kai believes it is freaky because they are almost like twins, but I do not believe so. I think it is cute.) But Rie's ears are tiny, and that is the only thing she inherited from her mother.

She is Zach's half-sister.

It is a controversy I do not want to dig too deep into, because it is the past, and everyone has gotten over it. We've had ample amount of time and ubiquitous events to stray us from the topic of what some called "Cole-x-Nya," for what four years is worth. I know that Jay has gotten over it because of "The Thing" that happened to Cole, Jay, and I in the events leading up to the Great Battle, our sudden forgetfulness of who we really were when our memories were stolen from us by a deadly, disturbed creature that was intent on stealing our souls and opening the Gates to hell. That monster has since been destroyed. During this time, when we forgot our identities, it dimmed the feelings—the emotions—that Jay got from knowing his girlfriend toyed with his friend. I don't know the complete dynamics of it. I wasn't too interested on the full process.

Either way, I know that Jay and Nya are married, and that must count for something.

Cole smiles lovingly at Rie. He, too, is dissimilar from who he was four years ago. The creature he'd become was gone, and now, Cole was just…Cole. More importantly he'd adopted a human-ness that I have. His inhumanity was gone. He was normal again. His hair is not as long anymore. His face is older, for he is twenty-three years old, and he knows parts of the world we did not. He is human.

_Human. _Do you know how much I love that word?

Jay didn't want to shout, so he whisper-shouted. "_Why did you turn off your humanity?" _he whisper-hisses, and I pull at the fray of my jeans again. They all emitted a little gasp when I told them I turned it off. I would not have expected this of myself, either. I do not know why I was so intent on being normal. I think I wanted to be normal for my family, for my brother, so I didn't embarrass them again, didn't screw up anymore. I wasn't comfortable with who I was, and that is what ultimately led me to "drive the car that killed me." I now know that I love myself more than anything, and would never change who I am. But still that part of my past haunts me. Lurking. Looming. _Laughing _at me…

"I was scared," I say finally. I bow my head so I don't have to look at him. "And I was sad. I did what I thought would work. But it didn't."

Jay looks incredulous. He leans forward, wide-eyed. "The Humanity Switch doesn't _FIX _your problems. It just _POSTPONES THEM, _Zane! Why would you do that? 'Cause when you turn it back on, all your emotions are just gonna come FLYING back at you—"

"We already know how this works," Cole says to cut him off. It is true. We know how the Humanity Switch operates. "It happened, like, twice with Llo—"

He stops. The mood of the room suddenly darkens. Not negatively, but sullenly. I can feel the air thicken with the pregnancy of depression, the weight of unhappiness clinging to the wraith that curls around all our throats, the monster of burden. No one says anything for a very, very long time. The Humanity Switch is a person's best friend, yet it also lingers as their worst enemy, a way to escape your issues but not erase them. Most of the time, the Switch makes things worse before they get better, after which people are clambering after you with dustpans and brooms in their hands, trying to clean up every mess you make. The counted number for those is a lot. When your Switch is off, you feel absolutely _nothing. _You are empty. We know it. We have seen it happen. We saw it happen with our best friend. The little boy we all loved so much.

I involuntarily look to _the_ _picture_ hanging over our mantel amongst the _other _pictures I had hanging there. I hate looking at it, but I love seeing it. I have mixed emotions with it; more so it depends on the day I am having. It is a picture of all of us, when we were young: Cole, nineteen; Jay, eighteen; Kai, nineteen; myself, I believe I was seventeen; Nya, an age I do not know; and Lloyd (Garmadon, at the time the photo was taken,) smiling at the camera, his face older (abruptly seventeen) and actually _happy_. We all stood with our backs to the Ultra Dragon, whose heads were lifted into the air in a triumphant roar. Misako Garmadon had taken that for us after the Overlord was defeated. It was maybe a few days afterwards. Jay's arms were wrapped around Nya, and they both beamed happily at the camera. Cole had his arm slung over my shoulder and Jay's. Kai and Lloyd, the best of friends, had each other in a position I thought was perfect for the moment. Kai had his arm around Lloyd's neck and was messing up his hair (we all were guilty of treating him like he was a little kid, even though he was older.) Lloyd was laughing, one eye squeezed shut, but his open one bursting with happiness, acceptance. He had his hands clasped over Kai's bare arm to try and pull him off, but there was no angry force between it. It showed _me _how well they were together, how perfect they were as best friends. The two were inseparable.

I then shift my gaze towards the last picture that anyone ever took of Lloyd. It was the morning of the Great Battle (not to be confused with the _Final _Battle…they are two different things) when I was trying to keep everyone's hopes up. We were in the monastery, the monastery of peace that the Clockwork Army had rebuilt in the same place of Sensei Wu's old monastery for the Ninja to reside in. He wasn't smiling in this picture. No one did in the pictures of that day. He looked so darkened, so serious, his eyes not blue but _red _from the dose of Devourer's Venom fed to him by the Prince of Darkness, the King of Hell: Noel Smith. (Kai's estranged younger brother from the Underworld…their father was the previous King of Hell, in the Kingdom of Death sector, not the sector that Lord Garmadon had ruled.) I knew that day that Lloyd was having a hard time fighting the venom, even as we rode off to battle. I knew it. I should've said something. It would've changed the outcome.

But I didn't.

I regret it a lot.

In the picture, Lloyd is looking towards the clouded sky, his face upturned in a furrowed-eyebrow, squinted, serious expression, his face empty. He was looking at the Ultra Dragon, circling the sky, ready to fight. Of course I never caught that in the photo. The Dragon, I mean. I don't even think Lloyd was aware I was photographing him. He was dressed in gold, in the new Ninja suit that he'd gotten from the Elemental Realm. He looked dangerously ready to fight. Confident that he'd win.

At his side was a small girl that had no romantic relationship with any of us, so you can untwist your knickers. She never loved anyone, because it was the nature of who she was. She looked at the sky, too, but I saw something in her face that I didn't see in Lloyd's: Hope. She was dressed in a shiny, metallic black suit, not because she was a Ninja—she was not—but because it was a leotard and easier to fight in. She was the Yin, the controller of the Dark Island. (Lloyd was the Yang, the Ninja of Creation. Since the Yin is the _opposite _of Yang, you can probably assume what she could do.) Her ebony hair was pinned away from her face in a ponytail that curled down her back. Her skin was literally colorless, like a blank sheet of paper, and her lips were blood red, and her eyes were a piercing blue. Around her throat, a beautiful gold chain with a golden pendant at the end dangled. (I do not know if you recognized those colors or not.) I liked to think that she, under the name _Seiko Mitsuhide, _was a good friend of mine. We were good friends. Someone who I found easy to talk to. I expressed my problems to her a lot. She listened. It was good.

The Great Battle was the last day we saw either of them.

My throat closes at the thought. I squeeze shut my eyes to stop the stinging of tears. Then I hear Kai speak, and I know that his voice is going to crack even before it does, because Kai loved Lloyd like a little brother. Like his best friend. He spoke quickly, trying to get his words out before he lost his voice. "Look, guys, Lloyd made his choice—he knew what he wanted, and…we promised we'd respect that, remember? He wanted to have a normal—" Kai can't finish. His voice cracks. When I look up, he is pinching the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. How did this go from a story-telling day to a let's-remember-those-we-don't-have day so quickly? Before I can speak, he abruptly stands up and looks at the floor. "I need some air," he said, and whirls on his heel to hurry across the room. The sound of the front door squeaking open and slamming shut resonates throughout the small apartment that Cole and I have adopted. I know that Kai misses Lloyd more than any of us. He loved him. Of course he misses him.

We all do.

But I think Kai misses him the most.

"Crap," Cole sighs, and drags his hand down his face. He presses his face into his palm. "Sorry, guys."

"It was an accident," Nya says softly. Cole doesn't look up. I know he feels awful for bringing up Lloyd. We don't really do it that often, especially in front of Kai, and especially on the kid's birthday. Today is not Lloyd's birthday. Do not misread that.

"Sto-wee?" asks Rie. I look at her. She's stopped petting her doll to stare at me earnestly. She wants me to continue. I do not think that Kai will be returning from his "air time" anytime soon, so I look around the room at my brothers. Cole looks upset. Jay looks wistful. Nya won't look at me. She instead strokes her baby. I decide after a moment of internal debate that I should perhaps continue with my story. I look at my hands, and my crossed legs. Did I mention I am sitting on the floor?

I pick at the fray on my jeans one last time. I am twenty one in real life. But in my story, I am just beginning anew. I close my eyes softly and picture the images I last reconciled. They are dark. I remember the feeling of turning off my humanity. It is like I am holding onto a million balloons in my hands, trying to keep my feet on the ground and hold them at the same time, and then just one day letting them go and allowing them to float into the air, scattering into a million different places, a disarray of colors and sizes disappearing into the air. The emotions I have now swell up inside of me. I open my mouth. "Where did I last leave off…Oh, yes." I take a deep breath. "I turned it off."

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**So thanks for reading that. **I hope I didn't confuse you too much. But I liked the idea the anonymous reviewer gave me and just HAD To use it...it was the perfect moment for Jay to interrupt. ;3

**Please review. And YOU go have an AWESOME day/night! We'll see you right back here next time!**

Kairi


	8. Chapter 7

**Sorry it's been a really long update...have been busy with other stories. **

**I'm overall really satisfied with the production of this chapter. XD **

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**DATE**: 26 of June**  
AGE: **16**  
STATUS: **human

The winter had come and disappeared, but it seemed as though the skies were ever unforgiving. Even in this time of great drought did the sky taunt us with black clouds, already pregnant with rain, but never spared the people of Fireman's Circle a minute drop to offer the land. Some people may have said the gods above were angry with us, angry for something that we, as humans, may have done to disrespect the land as we came. Others may have called it 'karma' and her uncanny ability to return our destitute favors when backhanded by a man's heed. I had heard many excuses for the lack of rain in the past two months, though the majority of it could simply be categorized as bizarre supernatural or religious reasons that I found extremely boring to my senses. When living on the streets, one heard a lot of things from a lot of different people, but one never could truly determine the truth from what had been dug beneath the lies.

I didn't believe it was anything but the weather acting up as if roving on a tantrum for afternoons on end. There wasn't any explanation to it but that, although my colleagues roaming the streets seemed to think there was a superior reason to the famish. To be honest, I despise it when humanity thinks of a reason to explain away some of the most simple of scientific explorations and occurrences; for one to come up with some peculiar and illogical description for the rain to suddenly cease its normal patterns was ridiculous. Once upon a childhood, I had found tales explaining away everyday peculiarities quite entertaining, and fascinating, and enthralling to my curious taste buds. Now, I was incapable of feeling the emotion so deep as to awaken a hunger within me that had no relation to the animalistic hunger I faced every day.

Living on my own had not been a plan to come so soon in my youth. I was still thankful for the ungodly opportunity to escape the clutches of my own father's relentless cruelty by disruptively excusing myself from his property and setting off on my own. I had stepped off his porch that ugly day, far off in my past, with my back turned as his only sign of goodbye as he screamed at me from the doorway. Hatred poured in vocal terms off his lips, spewed fitfully in the dead of the stress, while my mother and brother stared in bewilderment at my sudden choice. With Fang perched on my shoulder, I held my head high enough to show how dedicated I was to making that decision. If I had not, as they say, _flipped the switch, _however, I never would've made this independent decision to depart on my own at such an adolescent stage in my life. My humanity, before being destroyed by my brother's hand, had been my only peace of mind, what made me the Zane I had been before that. A weak, spineless child who found interest in everything, who never let himself become ruined or tormented by the opinions of others, whether they be expressed in verbal tones or excruciating actions. But Rikku's turn behind a torturous weapon had changed my mind. To be that heartbreakingly small inside of myself, as the old Zane had once been, screamed feebleness, shouted insecurity that I was no longer willing to welcome. Now, without the displeasures of suffering what came with living under my father's dominant command, I could only hope that surviving on my own was teaching those idiots a lesson. There are days when I wake up underneath the awning of an alleyway and wonder if I am being missed by my brother, or mother. But the thought never stays long after its spontaneous birth. I am always disinterested in knowing whether or not the truth is out there. I am not myself, and I have noticed.

I no longer find the small things in life interesting as I once did. Watching a moth as it rests gently on the glowing light bulb outside the back of a pizzeria no longer entertains me. I do not wish to delve deeper into the mysteries of life. I do not laugh anymore, and when I do it is sharp, clipped. I do not smile for pleasure. I do not generously hold open the door for the pregnant woman and her husband behind me, nor do I stop to help elders across the street. I do not skip along the sidewalks and wave happily at whoever happens to cross paths with a creature as carefree as I. I do not compliment people who deserve such a nice deed. I do not find dancing animals amazing anymore. I am not awestruck by a full moon, and I do not pray before I fall asleep anymore.

"Then what _do_ you do?" you ask as a concerned reader, and I emotionlessly will reply that all I am capable of doing now is breathing, living, and hurt without knowing I am hurting someone. Without _caring. _

I have nothing to have anymore, but that is the true beauty of the Humanity Switch. Without the emotions that contributed to my everyday life, I am able to finally peel of the sheen of fake sparkles that I had painted the world with so I can see what reality really is. To experience what the world actually holds in store for me. I do not see everything underneath that heavy hold of heaven that I used to think really did exist, nor see the good in people even if they happened to be bad. What I see now is real. I see the starving people, the dying people, the abusers and the prostitutes and the drug addicts. I see the bankrupt shop owners and the cheaters and the parents who've lost their child. Before the Switch, I think that not only did I have a part in hiding myself from the real world, but my brother also helped shield me from these gruesome realities that I now face without emotion. I think he intended to safely buffer off the rough edges of the story to settle this false sense of security around me like a second skin. I had never realized Rikku's true intentions before. Not until now.

If I could hate, I would despise the pity.

He has come looking for me many times, you know. Even once he brought my mother. The first time he found me in the city, living on my own with the armor of my clothes and sometimes a place to crash, I had been busy trying to make a living. It was not a peaceful means of living, either, what I was trying to sell myself for. Yet around the Fireman's Circle, Mr. Trader—the bastard—had already told every manager, every employee, every shopkeeper and every janitor that I was good for nothing, that I was not able to fully complete a task without some sort of mishap to set me backwards. The town, big as it is, already had known that poor Zane Montgomery had a mental condition that put him off as an unpredictable worker, but the words of a successful trader were enough to eclipse their better judgment and cut me off from even completing the first line of a resume: my full name. Fireman's Circle is a relatively large city—once then the third largest city in Ninjago, before technology become all the rage—to hold out some sort of job for me, but all employers believed I was not workable material. If this is due to the rumors that floated with my name or the cross words of a ripped off trader, I could never be for sure, but I had to resort to what would keep my belly full and my living shambles partially stable. If I had emotion I would not be proud of my, as you might call it, profession, but it did do as I needed it to. The money paid nicely, even if what I did was against the law.

Rikku was riding Constantine till the heels of her shoes were ran raw galloping all over the city in my wake, following leads to the ring of my name for dead ends, but he finally found me at sunset, deserting in farewell with a small apartment complex and a wad of cash in my hand. I remember that the sky had been, once more, very cloudy. It was the beginning of the awful drought, the day of last rain, the final outpour of God's tears before He stopped crying forever. Sometimes, I liked to think He stopped crying because He knew that I had stopped believing, although some may argue that would make Him cry more. I knew that I would end up in hell either way for my decision to voluntarily abandon my humanity. But maybe God had only ever cried because He had known someone as useless as me was wasting his time on childish, silly things. When I stopped believing in those things, I presumed that He had moved on, too. It seemed logical in a stupendous way.

Rikku had been drenched with water, and I with sweat. As I tucked away my three-hundred dollars into a safe place underneath my clothing, I had caught sight of my estranged brother with a scowl on my face. I was not displeased to see him, for I cannot feel such a deep emotion. I only knew he would make me late to my next appointment, and that would decrease my pay.

My brother had hollered Constantine to a complete stop many feet before me and threw his heavy body over the side, rain drizzling down his nose and into his mouth, painting his brown coat a darker color with the factor of being wet. Rikku's icy blue eyes had not failed to burn through the shadows of the cloud's cover of the sun. I remember they ached when they touched my hollow face. There, in the middle of a street, he'd tried to get me to come home, to forget what had happen to me and safely crawl back into my mother's arms, like the child I was—the child he thought I was better at being. I don't think, at that point, he'd known my humanity was gone. But someone can't just forget being abused by their brother, who obediently followed their father's orders like a little bitch, even if it scarred his little brother in the process. I had, not disrespectfully nor respectfully, declined him. My voice teased from my thin lips like a robot would've spoken. I remember saying it tonelessly. I didn't care. I had tried to move around him, but Rikku had stopped me, trying to make me listen, but I hadn't. Didn't want to. If I was so worthless to the household then, what good would returning—admitting defeat—do me, to land me more scars, more aches and whispers of pain? I couldn't undo what I had done to myself by removing my own humanity. I am an empty shell.

I'd left Rikku in the pour to stare longingly after my figure. Days later, he had returned with my mother to try to coax me home. I lied to you when I said that the last I'd seen my mother was the day I left my father's household. I merely forgot that I had seen her again, but I do not beg you for your forgiveness for that lie. I don't care that I have lied to you. She walked towards me, wearing a shawl to cover herself from the chilly spring, her hair tied away from her face in a slick, glistening bun. Wrinkles painted bags beneath her eyes that Rikku blamed on sleepless nights worrying about me. Her smile was as I had remembered it: warm, loving, everything that I had wanted before the Switch. They found me sitting outside of one of the many bakeries located inside of the Fireman's Circle. To be statistically correct, I believe there are exactly seven different rivaling bakeries inside of the city, but one can never be too sure. I am positive, though, that I have eaten from every one of them at one point or another.

My mother then proceeded to ask me to come home. In my hands, I played with a hundred dollar bill and five tens, wrinkling them and folding them and wearing them down with my own thin, scraped fingers. I sat with my knees up with my elbows resting against them, my arms dangling between my legs, and all the while I could look my mother straight in the eye and tell her I wasn't coming home. If I had not flipped the Switch, that would have been a rather crucial point for me, to look deep into her blue eyes and tell my own mommy I didn't want to come home. If I cared, I would've ran into her open arms the minute they raised and spread, burying my face in her sweet shoulder to cry about how truly awful it was living on the streets, employing myself as a male prostitute just so I could pick up another meal. But I didn't care. I told her I didn't need to return to a place where a good-for-nothing old man could use me as his punching bag. More than once, she tried to convince me that my father "has changed," but I never believed her anyway. My parting statement to them was, climbing to my feet and barely skimming over the brokenhearted eyes of Rikku and my mother, "I'd rather die out here on my own than ever come crawling back to a bunch of sick bastards like you, who will only continuously beat me down and hurt me for your own pleasure." I had walked away afterwards without looking back.

Two weeks later, my mother died. They didn't know why. The reasons for this are as bogus as those concocted for the origin of the drought. I've heard that my father hit her so hard, she fell into shock and died. Some rumored it was a broken heart that her favorite baby boy wouldn't come back to her, to be her saving grace around an unworthy husband. To be honest that is the theory I most believe. I truly believe I broke her heart, and in the future that is what makes _my_ heart crack and break when I think about being the one to cause my mother so much grief it consumed her. If I could ever go back in time and stop myself from refusing her offer to take me home, I would gladly take advantage of that chance to save her. My life would've come with such a different ending, though, and in the end that is not what I regret coming from that devastating choice.

I did not attend my mother's funeral. I remained outside of the funeral home, perched across the street on a bench dedicated to some old man I never knew, my only friend being my cat laid neatly over my shoulders, and watched the darkly painted establishment celebrate the death of an angel. It was the same place that also housed the goodbyes of my old friend, Mr. Walker, whom I had missed every day up until my humanity was gone. That day reminded me a lot of Mr. Walker's amenity. It was the day I met Carolyne and Danielle, the daughters of Mr. Julien, the man who bestowed me with Fang. The whole time I searched the dark windows for life, I couldn't seem to remove the image of two particular hazel eyes from my mind. When the service concluded, people poured from the doors like they had the day Mr. Walker was gone for good, all wearing clothing in some type of differentiating fabrics, but all of the same color consistency. The sea of black bled from the traditional doors of the funeral home, and in the school of bodies did I see my brother, Rikku, with Ming sadly wrapped around his arm. My father was at his side. A thick man, still evil and uncaring for the death of his wife. It would've enraged me.

Staring from across the street, I met my brother's eyes, dead in the crowd. He stared at me for a long, hard second. Then, as if to say something to me I wasn't catching to, he shook his head once, briskly. He didn't make eye contact with me again.

Despite my attitude towards him, Rikku didn't stop trying to come for me until he realized that I was never going to give in. It was a month and a few days after my mother's death when he accepted that I was never coming back, especially not to my father running the house without a wife to complete it. He died before he could remarry, but that's a while more into the story we haven't gotten to yet. Rikku stopped trying to convince me where my true home was, and our brotherly bond was severed completely. It would be until I caught the deadly virus hacking along at the Fireman's Circle before I ever saw him again—and by then, it had been almost too late.

By this point in the time of the story (June 26 if you've forgotten) I had already been on the streets for a long time, and it would be only a couple of days before the official six month anniversary of living by myself. Money was coming easily—I had regulars who I tended to, some once every three days, others three times a week. My profession was not hitting a dead-fast. I had even been able to afford my own one-room apartment, with a small bathroom and a half-kitchen that showed off no echo of my infatuation with cooking whatsoever. The woman who rented the room out to me said that I didn't need everything if it was just within arm's reach; the best part about snatching that apartment, though, was not the rush of independence that came with the closed deal, but the fact that it was on the top floor. I could see for a mile out my window. If I could feel, I would've loved it.

I paid off my rent with the high amounts of money I made from being a prostitute, and it seemed like the ugly events of my past faded away into barely a thought in the back of my head. The years of abuse were discolored, replaced by new memories with the girls I escorted every day, plus the many walks I took with Fang out into the city. My cat was thankfully not the type that ate or required a smelly litter box. She spent her time cooped up inside of my apartment most days with all the charming little toys I bought her, except the times when I opened the top window onto the flowerbox and fire escape so she could venture out and explore, but not stray too far. She brought me back many rather interesting surprises in her usual daytime extravaganzas, things ranging from the corpses of dead rats to the shoe of an old carpenter. Everything she brought, if she didn't return home after I did, was left as a present for me on my pillow. The kind deed was unsanitary to my tastes. Eventually, I began putting a towel over my pillow before I left for work so whatever she left me could be neatly disposed of in a trash cartridge.

When I wasn't working, I spent all my time with Fang. I didn't bother trying to make some kind of friends outside of home. People were too stupid, too fickle to be worth my time, much less the dedication and responsibility it takes for a friendship. Besides, no one would understand how I was completely empty. Void of anything. To say the least, people weren't worth the five cents it would take me to pay for an elevator ride downstairs. (And yes, you have to pay for one, which is why I take the stairs. I don't have change.)

I woke up that morning with Fang wrapped around herself at my side. The twin sized bed we shared was hard—it came with the room—enough to put a crick in my neck, but the cat seemed to lack any indentation in personality from the uncomfortable mattress. Her nose was tucked neatly under her pristine tail. I reached over with an automatic, affectionate petting across her back as I flipped onto my side, propping my head up with a perched elbow. The ball in Fang's throat rolled as she "purred" under my touch. "Good morning, girl," I murmured, bending to kiss her softly on the head. Fang, in return, stood and stretched as I kicked off my covers and did the same myself. The battery-powered clock on the wall informed me that it was twelve P.M, later than I had expected to rest, but great otherwise. My night had been late, long, and unentertaining, but it had also earned me five hundred dollars. That was enough to cover rent and spare me the cash to pay for a few home necessities. I was pleased with extending my work hours just to earn a couple more bucks. Fang whirled around my legs as I brushed my teeth over the sink with a tube of toothpaste just waiting to be thrown away and replaced with a full one. I added that to my mental list of needs to buy from the store today. _"MMRRROOWOWWW," _Fang hibbled from my ankles. With my toothbrush, foamy and covered with white, still stuffed in my cheek, I looked down at her and petted her smooth back with my foot.

I spat away the excess crap in my mouth and asked, "What?"

Fang was never a talker. When she made noise, I always knew she was either in pain from something happening to her gears that would needed to be fixed or she could sense something serious was about to go down. I frowned to myself and watched her jump onto the toilet seat to sit pristinely and curl her long tail around her feet, blinking at me through half lidded, black eyes. Her whiskers twitched again before releasing another long, drawn out _"MRRRRRROOOWWWWWOWWWWWRRRRRROWWW." _

"What is it?" I asked, frowning once more. From the small wooden table I'd grabbed off the corner, once posted under a FREE sign, I grabbed my can of shaving cream. I dabbed a wad into my palm and started lathering the fluffy white substance onto my chin. The client last night may have thought chin stubble was sexy, the whole reason I'd let it grow, but I sure as hell did not. The razor cut through the colorless foam with an even, rectangular pattern that I found attractive to my own senses. I rinsed away the residue attached to the razor head underneath the faucet, watching it wash away, gone as if it hadn't existed so quickly it was hard to process its departure. I continued to make the stubble magically disappear while I pondered why my cat had meowing irregularly. Her silence now hopefully meant whatever had bothered her was gone…

_"MMRRROWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRROWWWWWRRRRROWWWWWWW!" _Fang's howl made me cut my chin with the blade, slicing me deep enough to make me curse into the air and drop the razor into the sink. A warm dabble of blood began to rise in the spot where I had made a slice through a layer of skin, deep enough to need a Band-Aid. I gave her a glare as I ignored the warm pool of blood starting to collect on my face. She never normally acted like this. Something was horribly wrong with her—there had to be. If I found out she was just practicing for the alley cat aristocrat tryouts, I would surely detonate, even if I didn't have emotions. A noise so unnatural didn't come from a cat if not for a particular reason, otherwise something about this earth would be indeed screwed up completely. After completing my shave cleanly without another incident, I washed off my face and applied a bandage to the area she forced me to cut. I tossed a face towel between my fingers, turning to the cat that just stared from the toilet seat, half-lidded and quite observant. I raised an eyebrow. "You have issues," I told her, and turned on my heel.

"_Mmrroww," _she responded.

I made it into the main room, shuffling towards my bed and beading "Meow," tonelessly in reply, when I heard the soft knock of knuckles against the apartment door. Someone had come to visit me. I turned around to see Fang sitting in the door of the bathroom, looking at me slyly from the corner of her round eyes as if to say, _Ha, ha, _at me. This must've been what she was meowing about. Even in my gray sweatpants and wrinkled white shirt (still muffled from sleep) and my hair (though properly attended to) still disheveled, I made my way across the wood towards my front door, wondering who would come to see me. I had only two theories closing my hand against the brass handle and twisting: It was either some client, introducing themselves as they usually did, or it was Rikku, making a comeback to make my life a little bit more miserable every time he showed up. I had high expectations throwing open the front door.

But both of my hypotheses were incorrect.

I couldn't help it. My jaw did drop.

"Zane!" bursted the overly-happy Julien Juliens, his brown hair slicked back from his middle-aged face and his glasses slightly askew across his nose. He threw up his arms with hairbrained laughter. "How long has it been?!"

I stumbled for words. I could not produce them fast enough for him.

"Oh, never mind that," Julien laughed, waving his hands. "Pish, posh. It's been a while, my friend! You haven't seemed to be around! It wasn't too hard to find you, you know," he added, dropping his voice a few octaves as if it was classified information. "I just had to ask a couple who-what-nowheres and here you are! My, you look _different. _Oh, and the cat!" Julien crouched down beside Fang, who'd wriggled past my stupor to purr her way around _his _ankles now. Meanwhile, I continuously tried to comprehend what was happening—particularly why he was here, at my apartment—to failing premises. "What did you name her again?" He scratched Fang underneath the chin. "Flu? Ferret?"

"Fang," I managed to cough out. I know emotion is no longer in my brain's system, but what I was feeling was strangely virtual to bewilderment.

"Fang! Oh, that's right." Julien kept a smile over his face as he pet my cat, happy as could be. He spoke without reaching my eyes with his own. "You're probably wondering why I'm here," he said.

"A little," I admitted.

Julien seemed more engrossed in petting my cat and lifting her into his arms than answering that statement. Fang happily embraced him with her purrs louder than life, her eyes closed. Her nose explored his shirt like a dog might when wondering where their owner had been for so long. My lips twisted. "I came looking for you because—well, because of—"

"Did you know you have to PAY for that elevator?" said an incredulous voice, coming from further down the hallway. I felt my head turn to the side without quite understanding completely, but I could feel my whole body stop in dread when the words finally sunk in. Dread and shock seemed to be two barely-visible emotions I had pricking at the memory of how they felt, but not completely seeped outwards to whereas I could actually feel that emotion. Just the memory strung me along. From the figure coming down the hall, I recognized the swath of red hair and golden hazel eyes, the freckled cheeks, and the friendly smile all too well. It was the same face I'd been hiding from the day that I destroyed Mr. Trader's expensive stock of sellable items. I wanted to groan in pain like she'd punched me square in the gut with her presence of impending doom to come. This must've been the warning Fang was giving me earlier.

Carolyne and Julien were at my doorstep, obviously here for the unfinished purpose Mr. Julien was about to tell me. My hand involuntarily slapped itself against my own face. This, I found, was not going to end well. But it _would _be life changing.

Forever.

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**With that being said, please review and go have an AWESOME day/night!**


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